Tech glossary A–Z
Jargon, decoded. Short definitions first, the full explanation one click away.
Distributed Denial of Service: an attack that floods a website or network with traffic from many sources to make it unavailable. Cybersecurity
Four measures of software delivery performance: deployment frequency, lead time for changes, change failure rate, and time to restore service. Software Development
An incident in which sensitive, protected, or confidential information is accessed, stolen, or disclosed without authorization. Cybersecurity
A facility that houses servers, storage, and networking equipment, along with the power and cooling systems needed to run them. Cloud & DevOps
Finding and correcting errors, duplicates, and inconsistencies in data so it is accurate and usable for analysis. Data & Analytics
The policies, roles, and processes that determine how an organization's data is managed, protected, accessed, and kept accurate. Data & Analytics
A central repository that stores large volumes of raw data in its original format until it is needed for analysis. Data & Analytics
A data architecture that combines the low-cost, flexible storage of a data lake with the structure and query performance of a data warehouse. Data & Analytics
Tools and policies, known as DLP, that detect and stop sensitive data from being shared, leaked, or moved outside approved channels. Cybersecurity
An approach to data architecture that gives business domains ownership of their own data, shared as products across the organization. Data & Analytics
An automated series of steps that moves data from one or more sources, transforms it, and delivers it to a destination for use. Data & Analytics
Presenting data as charts, graphs, maps, or other visuals so patterns, trends, and outliers are easier to understand. Data & Analytics
A system that stores cleaned, structured data from many sources, optimized for reporting and business analysis. Data & Analytics
Decentralized Finance: financial services such as lending, borrowing, and trading built on blockchains using smart contracts. Web3 & Blockchain
The process of finding, understanding, and fixing errors, or bugs, in software code. Software Development
A branch of machine learning that uses neural networks with many layers to learn patterns from large amounts of data. Artificial Intelligence
Synthetic audio, video, or images generated or altered with AI to convincingly show someone saying or doing something they did not. Artificial Intelligence
A culture and set of practices that unite software development and IT operations to deliver software faster and more reliably. Cloud & DevOps
How easy, efficient, and pleasant it is for software developers to do their work with a given set of tools, processes, and platforms. Software Development
A type of generative AI model that creates images, audio, or video by starting from random noise and refining it step by step. Artificial Intelligence
A virtual model of a physical object, process, or system that is updated with real-world data to simulate and predict its behavior. Data & Analytics
The plans, tools, and processes an organization uses to restore its IT systems and data after a major outage, attack, or disaster. Cloud & DevOps
A popular platform for building, sharing, and running applications inside containers. Cloud & DevOps
The internet's directory service that translates human-friendly domain names into the numeric IP addresses computers use. Cloud & DevOps