name: Scalable Infrastructure Vocabulary description: >- Normative vocabulary for the scalable infrastructure topic domain, covering cloud providers, compute primitives, networking, storage, container orchestration, infrastructure as code, and operational management concepts. created: '2026-05-02' modified: '2026-05-02' tags: - Cloud - Compute - Infrastructure - Networking - Scalability - Storage terms: - term: Cloud Provider definition: >- A company that delivers computing infrastructure, platforms, and services over the internet on a pay-as-you-go model. Major providers include AWS (~31% market share), Microsoft Azure (~28%), and Google Cloud (~12%). related: - AWS - Azure - Google Cloud - DigitalOcean - term: Virtual Machine definition: >- An emulation of a computer system that runs on physical hardware. Cloud VMs (EC2 instances, GCE instances, Azure VMs, DigitalOcean Droplets) provide isolated compute environments with configurable CPU, memory, and storage. synonyms: - VM - Instance - Droplet related: - Instance Type - AMI - Bare Metal - term: Instance Type definition: >- A predefined combination of virtual CPU count, memory size, storage type, and network bandwidth capacity available on a cloud provider. Examples: AWS t3.medium (2 vCPU/4GB), GCE n2-standard-4 (4 vCPU/16GB), Azure Standard_D2s_v3 (2 vCPU/8GB). synonyms: - Machine Type - VM Size - Droplet Size related: - Virtual Machine - Spot Instance - term: Spot Instance definition: >- A discounted VM using spare cloud provider capacity. AWS Spot, GCE Preemptible, and Azure Spot VMs can be 60-90% cheaper than on-demand pricing but can be reclaimed by the provider with short notice. Suitable for fault-tolerant batch workloads. synonyms: - Preemptible Instance - Spot VM related: - Instance Type - Reserved Instance - term: AMI definition: >- Amazon Machine Image. A template containing the OS, application server, and application configuration used to launch EC2 instances. Equivalent to GCE Machine Image, Azure Managed Image, or DigitalOcean Snapshot. acronym: AMI fullName: Amazon Machine Image related: - Virtual Machine - Container Image - term: Virtual Private Cloud definition: >- An isolated virtual network within a cloud provider that logically segments resources. Each VPC has its own IP address range, subnets, route tables, and internet/NAT gateways. Foundation of cloud network security. synonyms: - VPC - Virtual Network - VNet related: - Subnet - Security Group - NAT Gateway - term: Subnet definition: >- A range of IP addresses within a VPC. Public subnets route traffic to an internet gateway; private subnets route outbound traffic through a NAT gateway. related: - VPC - Availability Zone - term: Security Group definition: >- A stateful virtual firewall controlling inbound and outbound traffic at the instance level in a VPC. Rules define allowed protocols, ports, and source/ destination CIDR blocks or other security groups. related: - VPC - Network ACL - Firewall - term: Availability Zone definition: >- An isolated physical data center within a cloud region. Each region has 2-6+ AZs. Distributing resources across AZs provides fault isolation and high availability. acronym: AZ related: - Region - Virtual Machine - term: Region definition: >- A geographic area containing multiple availability zones. Cloud providers have 20-40+ regions globally. Resources in different regions are isolated from each other. related: - Availability Zone - Multi-Region - term: Managed Kubernetes Service definition: >- A cloud provider service that manages the Kubernetes control plane (API server, etcd, scheduler, controller manager), allowing users to focus on deploying workloads rather than operating Kubernetes infrastructure. Examples: EKS, GKE, AKS. synonyms: - EKS - GKE - AKS related: - Kubernetes - Node Pool - term: Node Pool definition: >- A group of worker nodes in a Kubernetes cluster sharing the same configuration (instance type, OS, labels, taints). Multiple node pools allow different workload types (GPU, high-memory, spot) within the same cluster. synonyms: - Node Group - Agent Pool related: - Managed Kubernetes Service - Cluster Autoscaler - term: Cluster Autoscaler definition: >- A Kubernetes component that automatically adjusts the size of node pools based on pending pod scheduling failures (scale-up) or underutilized nodes (scale-down). Ensures sufficient cluster capacity at minimal cost. related: - Node Pool - Managed Kubernetes Service - term: Infrastructure as Code definition: >- The practice of managing and provisioning infrastructure through machine-readable configuration files rather than manual processes or interactive configuration tools. Terraform, Pulumi, AWS CDK, and Crossplane are leading IaC tools. acronym: IaC fullName: Infrastructure as Code related: - Terraform - Pulumi - GitOps - term: Terraform definition: >- HashiCorp's open-source IaC tool that uses HCL (HashiCorp Configuration Language) to declaratively provision and manage cloud infrastructure across 100+ providers. The most widely adopted IaC tool. related: - Infrastructure as Code - Pulumi - State File - term: State File definition: >- A file (terraform.tfstate) maintained by Terraform that records the current state of managed infrastructure. Used to detect drift between desired and actual configuration. Often stored remotely in S3, GCS, or Terraform Cloud. related: - Terraform - Infrastructure as Code - term: Block Storage definition: >- Persistent, attachable storage volumes presented as block devices to compute instances. Examples: AWS EBS, GCE Persistent Disk, Azure Managed Disk. Supports different performance tiers (HDD, SSD, NVMe). synonyms: - EBS - Persistent Disk - Managed Disk related: - Object Storage - File Storage - term: Object Storage definition: >- Highly scalable, durable cloud storage for unstructured data accessed via HTTP API. Examples: AWS S3, GCS, Azure Blob Storage, DigitalOcean Spaces. The foundation for data lakes, static website hosting, and backups. synonyms: - S3 - Blob Storage - GCS related: - Block Storage - CDN - term: NAT Gateway definition: >- A managed network address translation service that allows resources in private subnets to initiate outbound internet connections without exposing them to inbound internet traffic. related: - VPC - Subnet - term: Internet Gateway definition: >- A VPC component that allows communication between resources in the VPC and the internet. Required for public subnets to have inbound and outbound internet connectivity. related: - VPC - NAT Gateway categories: - name: Cloud Providers terms: - Cloud Provider - AWS - Azure - Google Cloud - DigitalOcean - name: Compute terms: - Virtual Machine - Instance Type - Spot Instance - AMI - name: Networking terms: - Virtual Private Cloud - Subnet - Security Group - NAT Gateway - Internet Gateway - Availability Zone - Region - name: Kubernetes Infrastructure terms: - Managed Kubernetes Service - Node Pool - Cluster Autoscaler - name: Infrastructure as Code terms: - Infrastructure as Code - Terraform - State File - name: Storage terms: - Block Storage - Object Storage