Cloud Terms and Definitions

Term	Definition
Active resources	The set of resources assigned to, and in use by, an application instance. See also: standby resources.
Application	A named set of one or more deployment packages.
Application container	Application containers define an operational method managing true application availability. Application containers group one or more workloads, the compute and storage requirements, availability requirements, and business requirements to define an operational method managing true application availability.
Application instance	A deployment package that has been selected by an application owner. It is latent until it begins execution. See also: deployment package.
Application owner	A user with the ability to select a deployment package found in the service catalog, thus creating an application instance. The application owner specifies the conditions for placing this application instance into execution.
Behavioral tags	Tags that specify how the Orchestrator controls the behavior of the application instance. Availability tags and performance tags are two types of behavioral tags. Behavioral tags specify that the Orchestrator uses a built-in mechanism to implement a specific behavior or policy. Therefore, all behavioral tags are defined by Stratus and implemented in the Orchestrator.
Block-level storage	Block storage is persistent storage organized into unstructured blocks of the same length. A block storage device usually can be attached and in use by only one machine or compute instance at a time.
Catalog application	A catalog application conceptually defines the container application deployment. A catalog application specifies if it is deployed exclusively on a network; for example, there can only be one on a network. There can only be one per environment; an existing application must be removed prior to creating a new one.
CIDR	Classless Inter-Domain Routing. CIDR is used to allocate and specify internet addresses used in inter-domain routing. CIDR notation is a syntax of specifying IP addresses and their associated routing prefix. CIDR notation appends a slash character to the address and the decimal number of leading bits of the routing prefix; for example, 192.168.2.0/24.
Cinder	Cinder is a block storage service for OpenStack. It allows the use of a reference implementation (LVM) to present storage resources to end users that can be consumed by the OpenStack Compute Project (Nova). Cinder virtualizes pools of block storage devices and provides end users with a self-service API to request and consume those resources without requiring any knowledge of where their storage is actually deployed, or on what type of device.
Cloud administrator	The person or persons who manage the set of resources devoted to the cloud infrastructure. They establish policies that govern the use of the cloud by tenants and users.
Container	Comprised of one or more virtual machines, availability levels, network capabilities, and performance definitions. Interrelationships of a deployed software application to resources outside of the cloud. Used to organize and store objects within OpenStack, similar to a Linux directory, but cannot be nested.
Deployment package	A complete, self-consistent set of images and configuration information that specifies one supported method of using an application. The structure includes images, volumes, internal network interdependencies, external network interdependencies, and security requirements. Controls the type of resources, the security of the resources, and the location of the resources utilized by the containers. See also: application instance.
Entity	A general term of an element of a deployment package. Examples are: image, network, volume, LUN, and others. Each entity references a single resource type.
Evacuate	High availability for virtual machines minimizes the effect of a nova-compute node failure. Upon failure detection, virtual machines whose storage is accessible from other nodes (for example, shared storage) can be rebuilt and restarted on a target node. If a cloud compute node fails due to a hardware malfunction or other reasons, you can evacuate instances to make them available again.
Executing application instance	An application instance that has entered execution; usually called an application instance.
Flavor	The defining sizes for RAM, disk, number of cores, and sizes at which an image can be deployed are called flavors. A virtual machine instance type.
Glance	The Glance project provides services for discovering, registering, and retrieving virtual machine images. Glance has a ReSTful API that allows querying of VM image metadata; as well as retrieval of the actual image. VM images made available through Glance can be stored in a variety of locations from simple file systems to object-storage systems like the OpenStack Swift project.
Heat	Heat is the main project in the OpenStack Orchestration program. It implements an orchestration engine to launch multiple composite cloud applications based on templates in the form of text files that can be treated like code. A native Heat template format is evolving, but Heat also endeavors to provide compatibility with the AWS CloudFormation template format, so that many existing CloudFormation templates can be launched on OpenStack. Heat provides both an OpenStack-native ReST API and a CloudFormation-compatible Query API.
Hypervisor	Software that arbitrates and controls virtual machine access to the actual underlying hardware.
Identity object	An entity that tracks users, permissions, and available services. It contains information for user, credentials, authentication, tokens, tenant information, endpoints, services, and roles.
Image	A file or collection of files for a specific operating system (OS) used to create or rebuild a server. An image is also a complete description of an operating system and the software products that are associated with it. An image is latent (not in execution). In practice, an image is a bootable file containing an operating system image, and often containing application-specific software packages.
Instance	A running virtual machine managed in the OpenStack cloud, or a virtual machine in a known state such as suspended, that can be used like a hardware server. An instance is an image assigned to a hypervisor that has entered execution. An instance is an instantiated image defined in the deployment package.
IT administrator	A person with overall responsibility for the definition of an application. An IT administrator has the authority to create an application in the service catalog, and to create the set of deployment packages for that application. The application owner deploys the deployment package.
KVM-FT	The version of KVM that has been extended by Stratus to add support for fault-tolerant operation.
Network	A network is the instantiation of a network type and environment within a tenant.
Network external resource	A well-known IP address accessible from within the cloud to the outside world. Outgoing only.
Network published resource	A well-known (floating) IP address accessible from outside the cloud to inside the cloud. Incoming only.
NFS	Network File System. A client/server application designed by Sun Microsystems that allows all network users to access shared files stored on computers of different types. NFS provides access to shared files through an interface called the Virtual File System (VFS) that runs on top of TCP/IP. Users can access and manipulate shared files as if they were stored locally on the user's own hard disk.
Node evacuation	If a cloud compute node fails due to a hardware malfunction or other reasons, instances can be automatically evacuated to again make them available. When the node is no longer available, the action defined in the recovery field is executed.
OpenStack volume	OpenStack volumes (Cinder) virtualize pools of block storage devices and provide end users with a self-service API to request and consume those resources without requiring any knowledge of where their storage is actually deployed or on what type of device.
Puppet	Puppet is an open-source platform for provisioning, configuring, and patching applications and operating system components. A Puppet deployment consists of two components: Puppet Master: The puppet master is a centralized configuration server that holds the definitions and instructions needed to install applications, as well as server roles. Puppet Client: A Puppet client connects to a Puppet server to download the necessary instructions to install, update, and patch the software running on it.
PVM	Parallel Virtual Machine. The PVM is a program that enables distributed computing among networked computers on different platforms, so that they can perform as a single, large unit for compute-intensive applications.
Resource	A generic term for a service, capability, or feature of the cloud that can be assigned to an application instance. Examples of cloud resources: hypervisor, image, a dynamic IP address, and others.
Resource type	The classification category of resources that share common characteristics. Examples of resource types: hypervisor, load balancer, and others.
ReSTful API	A web service API that uses ReST, or Representational State Transfer. ReST is the style of architecture for hypermedia systems used for the World Wide Web.
RPM	Red Hat Package Manager. A popular utility for installing software on Unix-like systems.
Service catalog	A database that holds the definition of all applications, application instances, IT administrators and application owners. Defines the application deployment selection interface used by the application owner.
Swift	An OpenStack core project that provides object-level storage services.
Slice	A stack of Orchestrator components with a single instance of each component, including the Orchestrator API. Multiple slices can be run for scaling the Stratus private cloud (SPC), or they can be run in different locations for high availability in the Stratus private cloud.
Standby resources	The set of resources that are held in reserve, ready to be used in the event that the active resources degrade, fail, or are otherwise unavailable. The set of standby resources is identical to the set of active resources, but their location in the cloud is sufficiently distinct that they are unlikely to degrade, fail, or become unavailable at the same time as the active resources.
Tags	The method of associating container definitions with infrastructure behaviors. Tags map applications to infrastructure. Tags are a name/value pair. There are three classes of tags: application category tags, behavioral tags, and custom matching tags. Each class of tags serves a distinct purpose, and the namespaces for each category do not overlap.
Tags (application category)	A tag that is associated with an application, which is used to group similar applications for the purpose of helping the user to find an appropriate application for his or her purpose.
Tags (behavioral)	A tag whose name and (optional) value pertain to a predefined behavior of the implementation. Quality-of-Service (QoS) tags are included in this category.
Tags (custom matching)	A user-defined matching tag. Custom matching tags allow a user to restrict resources definitions (for example, images) to specific objects (for example, nodes).
Tenant	Tenant refers to a group of users; for example, a business unit.
Tenant administrator	A person managing the set of resources devoted to a tenant, and establish policies that apply to users within their tenancy.
User	Users refers to individuals. See also: Tenant.
Virtual Machine (VM)	A virtual machine is an operating system instance that runs on top of a hypervisor. Multiple VMs can run at the same time on the same physical host. Also a synonym for an instance.
Volume	An OpenStack volume is block storage that can be attached to one instance at a time.
WAR files	Web application archive file. WAR files are used to distribute a collection of JavaServer Pages, Java servlets, Java classes, XML files, tag libraries, static web pages (HTML and related files), and other resources that together constitute a web application.
Workload	An independent service or collection of code to be executed.
Workload Protector	Refer to Cloud Workload Protector.
Yum	Yum, or Yellow dog Update Modified, is a package manager that was developed by Duke University to improve the installation of RPMs.

Active resources

The set of resources assigned to, and in use by, an application instance. See also: standby resources.

Application

A named set of one or more deployment packages.

Application container

Application containers define an operational method managing true application availability. Application containers group one or more workloads, the compute and storage requirements, availability requirements, and business requirements to define an operational method managing true application availability.

Application instance

A deployment package that has been selected by an application owner. It is latent until it begins execution. See also: deployment package.

Application owner

A user with the ability to select a deployment package found in the service catalog, thus creating an application instance. The application owner specifies the conditions for placing this application instance into execution.

Behavioral tags

Tags that specify how the Orchestrator controls the behavior of the application instance. Availability tags and performance tags are two types of behavioral tags. Behavioral tags specify that the Orchestrator uses a built-in mechanism to implement a specific behavior or policy. Therefore, all behavioral tags are defined by Stratus and implemented in the Orchestrator.

Block-level storage

Block storage is persistent storage organized into unstructured blocks of the same length. A block storage device usually can be attached and in use by only one machine or compute instance at a time.

Catalog application

A catalog application conceptually defines the container application deployment. A catalog application specifies if it is deployed exclusively on a network; for example, there can only be one on a network. There can only be one per environment; an existing application must be removed prior to creating a new one.

CIDR

Classless Inter-Domain Routing. CIDR is used to allocate and specify internet addresses used in inter-domain routing. CIDR notation is a syntax of specifying IP addresses and their associated routing prefix. CIDR notation appends a slash character to the address and the decimal number of leading bits of the routing prefix; for example, 192.168.2.0/24.

Cinder

Cinder is a block storage service for OpenStack. It allows the use of a reference implementation (LVM) to present storage resources to end users that can be consumed by the OpenStack Compute Project (Nova). Cinder virtualizes pools of block storage devices and provides end users with a self-service API to request and consume those resources without requiring any knowledge of where their storage is actually deployed, or on what type of device.

Cloud administrator

The person or persons who manage the set of resources devoted to the cloud infrastructure. They establish policies that govern the use of the cloud by tenants and users.

Container

Comprised of one or more virtual machines, availability levels, network capabilities, and performance definitions.

Interrelationships of a deployed software application to resources outside of the cloud. Used to organize and store objects within OpenStack, similar to a Linux directory, but cannot be nested.

Deployment package

A complete, self-consistent set of images and configuration information that specifies one supported method of using an application. The structure includes images, volumes, internal network interdependencies, external network interdependencies, and security requirements. Controls the type of resources, the security of the resources, and the location of the resources utilized by the containers. See also: application instance.

Entity

A general term of an element of a deployment package. Examples are: image, network, volume, LUN, and others. Each entity references a single resource type.

Evacuate

High availability for virtual machines minimizes the effect of a nova-compute node failure. Upon failure detection, virtual machines whose storage is accessible from other nodes (for example, shared storage) can be rebuilt and restarted on a target node. If a cloud compute node fails due to a hardware malfunction or other reasons, you can evacuate instances to make them available again.

Executing application instance

An application instance that has entered execution; usually called an application instance.

Flavor

The defining sizes for RAM, disk, number of cores, and sizes at which an image can be deployed are called flavors. A virtual machine instance type.

Glance

The Glance project provides services for discovering, registering, and retrieving virtual machine images. Glance has a ReSTful API that allows querying of VM image metadata; as well as retrieval of the actual image. VM images made available through Glance can be stored in a variety of locations from simple file systems to object-storage systems like the OpenStack Swift project.

Heat

Heat is the main project in the OpenStack Orchestration program. It implements an orchestration engine to launch multiple composite cloud applications based on templates in the form of text files that can be treated like code. A native Heat template format is evolving, but Heat also endeavors to provide compatibility with the AWS CloudFormation template format, so that many existing CloudFormation templates can be launched on OpenStack. Heat provides both an OpenStack-native ReST API and a CloudFormation-compatible Query API.

Hypervisor

Software that arbitrates and controls virtual machine access to the actual underlying hardware.

Identity object

An entity that tracks users, permissions, and available services. It contains information for user, credentials, authentication, tokens, tenant information, endpoints, services, and roles.

Image

A file or collection of files for a specific operating system (OS) used to create or rebuild a server. An image is also a complete description of an operating system and the software products that are associated with it. An image is latent (not in execution). In practice, an image is a bootable file containing an operating system image, and often containing application-specific software packages.

Instance

A running virtual machine managed in the OpenStack cloud, or a virtual machine in a known state such as suspended, that can be used like a hardware server. An instance is an image assigned to a hypervisor that has entered execution.

An instance is an instantiated image defined in the deployment package.

IT administrator

A person with overall responsibility for the definition of an application. An IT administrator has the authority to create an application in the service catalog, and to create the set of deployment packages for that application. The application owner deploys the deployment package.

KVM-FT

The version of KVM that has been extended by Stratus to add support for fault-tolerant operation.

Network

A network is the instantiation of a network type and environment within a tenant.

Network external resource

A well-known IP address accessible from within the cloud to the outside world. Outgoing only.

Network published resource

A well-known (floating) IP address accessible from outside the cloud to inside the cloud. Incoming only.

NFS

Network File System. A client/server application designed by Sun Microsystems that allows all network users to access shared files stored on computers of different types. NFS provides access to shared files through an interface called the Virtual File System (VFS) that runs on top of TCP/IP. Users can access and manipulate shared files as if they were stored locally on the user's own hard disk.

Node evacuation

If a cloud compute node fails due to a hardware malfunction or other reasons, instances can be automatically evacuated to again make them available. When the node is no longer available, the action defined in the recovery field is executed.

OpenStack volume

OpenStack volumes (Cinder) virtualize pools of block storage devices and provide end users with a self-service API to request and consume those resources without requiring any knowledge of where their storage is actually deployed or on what type of device.

Puppet

Puppet is an open-source platform for provisioning, configuring, and patching applications and operating system components. A Puppet deployment consists of two components:
Puppet Master: The puppet master is a centralized configuration server that holds the definitions and instructions needed to install applications, as well as server roles.
Puppet Client: A Puppet client connects to a Puppet server to download the necessary instructions to install, update, and patch the software running on it.

PVM

Parallel Virtual Machine. The PVM is a program that enables distributed computing among networked computers on different platforms, so that they can perform as a single, large unit for compute-intensive applications.

Resource

A generic term for a service, capability, or feature of the cloud that can be assigned to an application instance. Examples of cloud resources: hypervisor, image, a dynamic IP address, and others.

Resource type

The classification category of resources that share common characteristics. Examples of resource types: hypervisor, load balancer, and others.

ReSTful API

A web service API that uses ReST, or Representational State Transfer. ReST is the style of architecture for hypermedia systems used for the World Wide Web.

RPM

Red Hat Package Manager. A popular utility for installing software on Unix-like systems.

Service catalog

A database that holds the definition of all applications, application instances, IT administrators and application owners. Defines the application deployment selection interface used by the application owner.

Swift

An OpenStack core project that provides object-level storage services.

Slice

A stack of Orchestrator components with a single instance of each component, including the Orchestrator API. Multiple slices can be run for scaling the Stratus private cloud (SPC), or they can be run in different locations for high availability in the Stratus private cloud.

Standby resources

The set of resources that are held in reserve, ready to be used in the event that the active resources degrade, fail, or are otherwise unavailable. The set of standby resources is identical to the set of active resources, but their location in the cloud is sufficiently distinct that they are unlikely to degrade, fail, or become unavailable at the same time as the active resources.

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