MeteorOps

DevOps Glossary

Discover and learn all DevOps terms here.

  • Active Directory

    Microsoft Active Directory manages identities and access policies for users, groups, and devices across Windows domains.

    Security

  • AI Gateway

    A managed front door for AI models that routes requests and applies security, rate limits, logging, and safety checks.

    Networking

  • Ansible

    Open source automation tool that uses playbooks to configure servers, deploy applications, and enforce consistent system state.

    Configuration Management

  • API Gateway

    API Gateway is a managed front door for backend APIs that routes client requests and handles common tasks like authentication, rate limiting, and monitoring.

    Networking

  • Argo CD

    GitOps continuous delivery tool for Kubernetes that syncs deployments from Git and alerts on configuration drift.

    CI/CD

  • AWS

    AWS is Amazon’s cloud platform providing on-demand compute, storage, networking, and managed services for building and running applications.

    Cloud Computing

  • AWS App Mesh

    AWS App Mesh controls service-to-service traffic for microservices on AWS with routing, observability, and resiliency policies.

    Cloud Computing

  • AWS IAM Role

    AWS IAM Role is an identity with permissions that services, users, or workloads assume to access AWS resources.

    Authentication and Authorization

  • AWS IoT

    AWS IoT securely connects devices to AWS, enabling telemetry ingestion, processing, and remote device management.

    Cloud Computing

  • AWS Lambda

    AWS Lambda runs code on AWS in response to events, automatically scaling without server management for APIs and background processing.

    Cloud Computing

  • AWS STS AssumeRole

    AWS STS AssumeRole is an API call that returns temporary credentials for access allowed by another IAM role.

    Authentication and Authorization

  • Backstage

    An open-source framework for building an internal developer portal where teams can find services, docs, and tools in one place.

  • Branching

    Creating a separate copy of the code so people can work on changes without messing up the main version, then merge it back when it’s ready.

    Version Control

  • Chaos Engineering

    Chaos Engineering is a practice of safely injecting failures into a system to observe its behavior and improve reliability.

    Reliability

  • CI/CD Pipeline

    A CI/CD pipeline is an automated workflow that builds, tests, and deploys code changes through repeatable checks before release.

    CI/CD

  • Circuit Breaker

    Circuit Breaker is a pattern that pauses calls to failing services to reduce cascading failures during outages.

    Reliability

  • Cloud

    Internet-based servers and managed services that run apps and store data for you, so you don’t need to own and maintain the hardware.

    Cloud Computing

  • Container

    A lightweight package that bundles an app with everything it needs so it runs the same way anywhere.

    Container Orchestration

  • Container Registry

    A central place to store, version, and share container images so apps can be pulled and run anywhere.

  • Continuous Delivery

    Continuous Delivery automates testing and release readiness for each code change, enabling frequent, reliable deployments with minimal manual effort.

    CI/CD

  • Continuous Integration

    Frequent merges to a shared branch with automated builds and tests to detect integration problems early.

    CI/CD

  • Custom Resource Definition (CRD)

    A Kubernetes API extension that lets you define new resource types so you can manage your own custom components like built-in Kubernetes objects.

    Container Orchestration

  • Dead Letter Queue (DLQ)

    Dead Letter Queue (DLQ) is a queue for failed messages, used to isolate errors for later retry or inspection.

    Reliability

  • Development Environment

    Isolated workspace for building, running, and testing software changes safely before deploying to shared or production environments.

    Practices and Culture

  • DevOps

    Practices and culture aligning development and operations to automate delivery, improve reliability, and speed up software deployments.

    Practices and Culture

  • Docker

    A tool that packages an app and everything it needs into a small, isolated container so it runs the same anywhere.

  • DORA Metrics

    DORA Metrics are four delivery measures tracking deploy frequency, lead time, change failure rate, and recovery time.

    CI/CD

  • eBPF

    Linux kernel tech for running tiny safe programs in the kernel to trace, measure, and sometimes control system and network behavior.

    Monitoring and Logging

  • Elasticsearch

    Distributed search and analytics engine for indexing, querying, and aggregating large datasets in near real time.

    Monitoring and Logging

  • Error Budget

    The allowed amount of downtime or errors a service can have and still hit its reliability target (SLO).

    Reliability

  • Feature Flag

    A switch in configuration that turns a feature on or off in a running app without changing or redeploying code.

    Configuration Management

  • Flux CD

    GitOps controller for Kubernetes that syncs cluster resources to desired state defined in Git repositories for automated deployments.

    CI/CD

  • GCP

    Google Cloud Platform provides Google-managed services for compute, storage, networking, and analytics to build and run applications.

    Cloud Computing

  • GCP BigQuery

    GCP BigQuery is Google Cloud’s managed data warehouse for running fast SQL analytics on large datasets without managing infrastructure.

    Databases

  • GitOps

    GitOps manages application and infrastructure changes by syncing deployments from Git-defined desired state through automated workflows.

    CI/CD

  • Golden Path

    Golden Path is a documented, supported way for teams to build, deploy, and run services using approved tools and templates.

    CI/CD

  • Grafana Tempo

    Open source distributed tracing backend from Grafana Labs for ingesting, storing, and querying traces to troubleshoot microservices performance.

    Monitoring and Logging

  • Groovy

    Dynamic JVM language that extends Java with concise syntax for scripting, automation, and rapid application development.

    Programming Languages

  • gRPC Deadline

    A gRPC deadline is a per-RPC time limit that tells services when to stop waiting and fail the request.

    Reliability

  • Helm

    Kubernetes package manager that packages manifests into versioned charts for consistent installs, upgrades, and configuration.

    Container Orchestration

  • Helm Chart

    A Helm Chart is a package of Kubernetes manifests and templates used to install and manage an app in a cluster.

    Container Orchestration

  • Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA)

    Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) is a Kubernetes controller that scales pod replicas using CPU or custom metrics.

    Container Orchestration

  • Idempotency Key

    An idempotency key is a unique API request token that lets services retry operations without duplicate writes or charges.

    API Management

  • Incident Management

    Coordinated way to detect, prioritize, fix, and learn from service outages or other unplanned problems so systems get back to normal fast.

    Reliability

  • Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

    Managing and setting up servers, networks, and cloud resources using code files so changes are repeatable, reviewable, and automated.

    Infrastructure Management

  • Istio

    Istio is a Kubernetes service mesh that manages microservice traffic with security, policy controls, and observability.

    Networking

  • Jenkins

    Open source automation server for CI/CD that runs pipelines to build, test, and deploy software.

    CI/CD

  • Karpenter

    Automates node scaling in Kubernetes clusters.

    Infrastructure Management

  • KRO

    KRO orchestrates related Kubernetes resources as one unit using templates and rules to standardize platform deployments.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes

    Open source container orchestration platform that deploys, scales, and manages containerized applications across clusters.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes Admission Controller

    Kubernetes Admission Controller checks API calls to allow, change, or deny cluster changes before saving them.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes ClusterRole

    Kubernetes ClusterRole is a cluster-wide RBAC role that defines access to namespace and cluster resources.

    Authentication and Authorization

  • Kubernetes ClusterRoleBinding

    Kubernetes ClusterRoleBinding maps a ClusterRole to users, groups, or service accounts for cluster-wide RBAC access.

    Authentication and Authorization

  • Kubernetes ConfigMap

    A Kubernetes ConfigMap is an API object storing non-sensitive configuration for pods, separate from container images.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes CronJob

    A Kubernetes CronJob creates Jobs on a schedule to automate recurring tasks inside a cluster, like backups or cleanup.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes DaemonSet

    Kubernetes DaemonSet is a workload API object that runs one pod on each selected node for cluster-wide node agents.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes Deployment

    A Kubernetes Deployment is a workload API object that manages replicated pods and rolling updates in a cluster.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes EndpointSlice

    Kubernetes EndpointSlice groups Service endpoints into slices so controllers and proxies can route traffic to pods.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes Gateway API

    Kubernetes Gateway API defines Kubernetes resources for managing service traffic routing into clusters with gateway, route, and policy objects.

    Networking

  • Kubernetes Ingress

    A Kubernetes resource that tells the cluster how to route incoming web traffic from outside to the right internal Service using rules like hostnames and paths.

    Networking

  • Kubernetes IngressClass

    Kubernetes IngressClass links an Ingress to the controller that routes outside traffic for cluster services.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes Init Container

    A Kubernetes init container runs before app containers in a pod to prepare dependencies, config, or setup tasks.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes Job

    A Kubernetes Job runs one or more pods to completion for finite tasks, such as batch processing inside a cluster.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes Labels and Selectors

    Kubernetes labels are key-value tags on objects, and selectors match them to group Pods for services or controllers.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes LimitRange

    Kubernetes LimitRange is a namespace policy setting CPU and memory requests or limits for pods at admission time.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes Liveness Probe

    A Kubernetes liveness probe checks whether a container is alive and restarts it when the app stops responding.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes Namespace

    A Kubernetes Namespace is a logical partition in a cluster used to group resources and scope access, policies, or quotas.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes Network Policy

    Rules that say which pods in a Kubernetes cluster are allowed to talk to which other pods or services over the network.

    Networking

  • Kubernetes NetworkPolicy

    Kubernetes NetworkPolicy sets rules for pod traffic in a cluster, controlling which pods can connect to other pods.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes Node

    A Kubernetes Node is a worker machine in a cluster that runs pods and provides CPU, memory, and networking for workloads.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes Operator

    A Kubernetes Operator is a controller that automates app lifecycle management in a cluster using custom resources.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes Operators

    Kubernetes-native controllers that run an app for you by automating deploys, configuration, and ongoing operations using custom resources.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes PersistentVolume (PV)

    A Kubernetes PV is a cluster storage resource that lets pods keep data beyond restarts through bound claims.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes Pod

    A Kubernetes Pod is the smallest deployable cluster unit, running one or more containers that share a network.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes PriorityClass

    Kubernetes PriorityClass sets pod priority, allowing critical workloads to preempt lower-priority pods when cluster resources are scarce.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes RBAC

    Kubernetes RBAC controls which users, groups, or service accounts can perform actions on cluster resources to limit access.

    Authentication and Authorization

  • Kubernetes Readiness Probe

    A Kubernetes readiness probe checks whether a pod is ready for traffic before adding it to Service endpoints.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes ReplicaSet

    A Kubernetes ReplicaSet keeps a set number of matching pods running in a cluster, replacing failed ones as needed.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes ResourceQuota

    Kubernetes ResourceQuota is a namespace limit for CPU, memory, storage, and objects that controls cluster use.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes Role

    Kubernetes Role is a namespaced RBAC object that defines allowed actions on resources, applied through RoleBindings.

    Authentication and Authorization

  • Kubernetes RoleBinding

    Kubernetes RoleBinding assigns a Role’s namespace permissions to users, groups, or service accounts for RBAC control.

    Authentication and Authorization

  • Kubernetes Secret

    A Kubernetes Secret is an API object for sensitive data, such as tokens or passwords, used by pods.

    Secrets Management

  • Kubernetes SecurityContext

    Kubernetes SecurityContext defines Pod or container security settings, controlling runtime privileges, user IDs, and Linux capabilities.

    Security

  • Kubernetes Service

    A Kubernetes Service is a stable network endpoint that exposes pods and routes traffic within or outside a cluster.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes ServiceAccount

    A Kubernetes ServiceAccount is an identity for pods to authenticate to the API server and access cluster resources.

    Authentication and Authorization

  • Kubernetes StatefulSet

    Kubernetes StatefulSet is a workload API object for stateful pods, giving each pod stable identity and storage.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes StorageClass

    Kubernetes StorageClass defines volume provisioning settings for PVCs, letting teams request storage by class.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes Taints and Tolerations

    Kubernetes taints and tolerations control scheduling by marking nodes and allowing only matching pods to run there.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes Volume

    Kubernetes Volume is a storage resource attached to a pod, used to persist or share data across containers.

    Container Orchestration

  • Kubernetes VolumeSnapshot

    A Kubernetes VolumeSnapshot captures a point-in-time PVC copy for backup, restore, or storage cloning workflows.

    Container Orchestration

  • Linux

    Open source Unix-like kernel powering Linux distributions for servers, desktops, and embedded systems with reliable process and memory management.

    Virtualization

  • Linux Kali

    Debian-based Linux distribution for penetration testing and security auditing with preinstalled tools for scanning exploitation and forensics.

    Security

  • Log Rotation

    Automated rotation, compression, and retention of log files to prevent unbounded growth and simplify troubleshooting and storage.

    Monitoring and Logging

  • Microservices

    An app split into small services that talk over APIs, so each piece can be deployed, updated, and scaled independently.

    Scalability

  • MongoDB

    MongoDB is a NoSQL document database that stores JSON-like data for flexible schemas and scalable application workloads.

    Data Management

  • NginX

    NginX is an open source web server and reverse proxy for serving HTTP traffic, caching responses, and balancing load across backends.

    Networking

  • Observability

    Observability uses logs, metrics, and traces to infer system state and quickly troubleshoot performance and reliability issues.

    Monitoring and Logging

  • Observability

    Live view of system operations.

    Monitoring and Logging

  • OIDC (OpenID Connect)

    OAuth 2.0-based identity layer that lets apps verify who a user is and get basic profile info via standardized tokens.

    Authentication and Authorization

  • On-Premise

    IT solutions hosted on company-owned hardware.

    Infrastructure Management

  • On-Premise

    IT solutions hosted on company-owned hardware.

    Infrastructure Management

  • On-Premise

    Running applications and storing data on company-owned servers, providing direct control over infrastructure, security, and compliance.

    Infrastructure Management

  • Open Policy Agent (OPA)

    Open Policy Agent (OPA) is an open source policy engine that evaluates rules against requests and configurations to enforce authorization and security checks.

    Authentication and Authorization

  • Open Policy Agent (OPA)

    Open Policy Agent (OPA) is an open source policy engine that checks rules for requests, deployments, and access.

    Authentication and Authorization

  • OpenSearch

    Open-source search and analytics engine that indexes data so you can find and explore it fast, even at huge scale.

    Data Management

  • OpenTelemetry

    OpenTelemetry is an open-source observability framework that standardizes traces, metrics, and logs from app services.

    Monitoring and Logging

  • OpenTelemetry Collector

    OpenTelemetry Collector is a component that receives, processes, and exports traces, metrics, and logs.

    Observability

  • OpenVPN

    OpenVPN is open source VPN software that builds encrypted tunnels between clients and servers to secure network traffic.

    Networking

  • Pod Disruption Budget (PDB)

    A Pod Disruption Budget (PDB) is a Kubernetes policy limiting voluntary pod evictions to keep replicas available.

    Container Orchestration

  • PostgreSQL

    Open-source relational database for storing and querying structured data with SQL, with optional JSON support for semi-structured data.

    Data Management

  • Postmortem

    Postmortem is a written review after an incident that explains what happened, why it happened, and what changes will prevent it from happening again.

  • Production Environment

    Live deployment environment where applications handle real users and data with production-grade security, performance, and reliability.

    Practices and Culture

  • Prometheus

    Prometheus is an open-source monitoring and alerting toolkit that scrapes time-series metrics from services and evaluates queries and alert rules.

    Monitoring and Logging

  • Prometheus Recording Rule

    Prometheus Recording Rule is a Prometheus rule that precomputes PromQL into time series for faster alerts.

    Monitoring and Logging

  • Pulumi

    Manage cloud resources using code.

    Infrastructure Management

  • Quarkus

    Quarkus is a Kubernetes-native Java framework for containerized microservices, optimized for fast startup and low memory usage.

    Cloud Computing

  • RabbitMQ

    RabbitMQ is an open source message broker that queues and routes messages between services for asynchronous communication.

    Networking

  • Rook

    Rook orchestrates persistent storage on Kubernetes, automating deployment and operations for stateful container workloads.

    Container Orchestration

  • Scaling

    Adjusting compute resources up or down to match workload demand, maintaining performance while controlling infrastructure cost.

    Scalability

  • Secrets Management

    Securely storing and controlling access to passwords, API keys, tokens, and other sensitive values so apps and systems can use them without exposing them.

    Security

  • Service Catalog

    A searchable list of the services a team offers, with what each one does, who owns it, and how to request it.

    Practices and Culture

  • Service Level Agreement (SLA)

    A contract that defines expected service uptime, performance, and support response times between a provider and a customer.

    Reliability

  • Service Level Indicator (SLI)

    A specific number that measures what users actually experience from a service, like success rate, response time, or error rate.

    Monitoring and Logging

  • Service Mesh

    Infrastructure layer that routes, secures, and observes traffic between microservices without changing app code.

    Networking

  • SIEM

    Tool for quick threat detection and response.

    Security

  • SLSA Provenance

    SLSA Provenance is signed build metadata recording an artifact’s source, build steps, and builder for verification.

    Security

  • SonarQube

    Static code analysis platform that scans code for bugs, vulnerabilities, and maintainability issues during development and CI.

    CI/CD

  • Spinnaker

    Open-source continuous delivery platform that manages deployment pipelines across Kubernetes and major cloud providers.

    CI/CD

  • SSL

    SSL secures client server traffic using encryption and authentication to prevent eavesdropping and tampering.

    Security

  • Tekton

    Tekton provides Kubernetes-native CI/CD pipeline components for building, testing, and deploying software through declarative, reusable tasks.

    CI/CD

  • Terraform

    HashiCorp Terraform provisions and manages cloud and on-prem infrastructure from declarative code for repeatable, versioned deployments.

    Infrastructure Management

  • Terraform State

    Terraform State is data mapping config to infrastructure, letting Terraform track and change its managed resources.

    Infrastructure as Code

  • Terragrunt

    Terragrunt wraps Terraform to manage multi-environment infrastructure with shared configuration and reduced code duplication.

    Configuration Management

  • Terragrunt

    Terragrunt wraps Terraform to share configuration and reduce duplication when managing infrastructure across multiple environments.

    Configuration Management

  • Terragrunt

    Terragrunt wraps Terraform to reuse shared configuration and manage multi-environment infrastructure with less duplicated code.

    Configuration Management

  • Uptime

    The percentage of time a system or service is up, running, and available to users.

    Reliability

  • Vagrant

    Tool that creates and manages repeatable virtual machine dev environments from a simple config file, so everyone works on the same setup.

    Virtualization

  • Vulnerability Scanning

    Automated scanning of systems, apps, and networks to spot known security weaknesses so you can fix them early.

    Security

  • Workload

    A workload runs an application, job, or service and consumes compute, memory, storage, and network resources.

    Infrastructure Management

  • Xen

    An open-source bare-metal hypervisor that lets one physical server run many separate virtual machines safely.

    Virtualization

  • YAML

    YAML is a human-readable data serialization format used to define configuration files and structured settings for applications and infrastructure.

    Configuration Management

  • Zero Trust

    Zero Trust requires continuous verification and least privilege access so breaches are contained across users, devices, apps, and networks.

    Security