Definition. Anything as a. Service (XaaS). The collective term for anything being
provided as a service through a cloud based computing model. SaaS, IaaS and ...
The new vocabulary of cloud: 50 key terms explained Term
Definition
Term Definition Cloud is changing more than just the way we use IT infrastructure and deliver IT services. It’s also changing the way we talk about IT.
It has created its own vocabulary, with new words and phrases to describe technologies, practices and concepts that had scarcely been imagined five or ten years ago. And while everyone can agree on the definition of some of them, others are still in flux, too new to be pinned down to a single meaning. Some are used in different ways by different vendors and groups, depending on their own particular stance on cloud. It’s a bit of a semantic minefield.
So you’re clear on the distinction, we’ve highlighted Canonical terms. We’ve also asked some of our top people to expand on some of the words and phrases throughout the glossary, to give you an idea of where we stand on certain key concepts. We hope you find this glossary useful – and if there’s anything you’d like further clarification or advice on, please do get in touch on +44 (0)20 763 2471 or ubuntu.com The Canonical Cloud Team
This glossary is our attempt to define 50 terms used in cloud computing today. Most of them are vendor-independent, but you’ll find a few Canonical-specific terms in here too. As we’re the company behind Ubuntu, the most popular operating system for the cloud, some of our own terminology reflects – and is inextricably linked with – wider cloud computing concepts.
Term
Definition
Anything as a The collective term for anything being provided as a service Service (XaaS) through a cloud based computing model. SaaS, IaaS and PaaS are forms of XaaS.
Automated Provisioning
The automatic creation, configuration and deployment of new virtual machine instances in a cloud environment. Automated provisioning is a critical element of cloud computing as it enables new instances to be created and activated instantly to meet user demand.
Autoscaling
The ability to add or de-provision cloud services and infrastructure automatically, depending on usage demands. See also: Elastic Computing
Big Data
Very large volumes of structured or unstructured data that have the potential to offer deep business or market insight when analysed. Full description
Canonical
The company behind Ubuntu, the world's most popular distribution of the Linux operating system.
Charms
Juju Charms are a set of pre-written instructions that deploys a cloud service. Charms encapsulate the knowledge connected with an application—dependencies, relations and platform configuration—to enable developers to deploy new cloud services quickly.
Closed Cloud
A cloud environment built using proprietary, licensed software components.
Cloud
A model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources - such as networks, servers, storage, applications, and services - that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.
Cloud Bursting
The act of moving heavy, occasional workloads from a private cloud into the public cloud for more cost-effective processing. See also: Cloudstorming
Term
Definition
“The stability of Ubuntu gives us peace of mind that our systems and data will be constantly available, and that the site will stay up at all times.” Leandro Reox, Senior Analyst and Cloud Builder, Mercadolibre
Term
Definition
Cloud Orientated Architecture
A computing environment in which individual cloud applications are orchestrated together to perform a specific service or automate a specific process.
Cloud Portability
The ability to move applications and data easily from one cloud provider to another.
Cloud Provider
A company that provides cloud services, whether software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) or infrastructure as a service (IaaS).
Cloud Sourcing
The act of buying cloud services (whether SaaS, PaaS or IaaS) from an external provider.
Cloud storming
The act of moving heavy, occasional workloads from a private cloud into the public cloud for more cost-effective processing. See also: Cloudbursting
Cluster
A group of servers, implemented to act like a single system to enable high availability or workload balancing.
Data as a Service (DaaS)
A cloud service by which data files such as text, sound and images are provisioned and distributed to users for use in their own applications. Delivery is normally via the public internet.
Elastic Computing
The ability to add or de-provision cloud services and infrastructure automatically, depending on usage demands. See also: Autoscaling
Federating/ Federation
The act of combining data or user identities across multiple systems.
Term
Definition
Grid Computing
Grid computing is where workstations on the same network have their resources pooled in order to complete computing tasks to address a single problem. Grid is sometimes used synonymously with cloud computing.
Guest Instance
In the cloud, a self-contained instance of an operating system provisioned for the user for the duration of their session in the cloud.
Hadoop
An open-source file system that is optimised for the storage and retrieval of very large data sets. See also: Big Data
Hybrid Cloud
A cloud computing strategy that makes use of both private and public cloud infrastructure - sometimes shifting workloads between them as economics and demand for computing resource dictate.
Hyperscale
A description commonly applied to a data center characterised by a high-volume, high-density deployment of commodity blade servers. Full description
Infrastructure A service that provides organisations with access to elastic, as a Service on-demand computing resources in the cloud, including servers, (IaaS) storage and networking, on top of which the customer may deploy their own applications, middleware, database, virtual machines and operating system software. Juju
A service orchestration tool from Canonical that enables the use of charms to deploy new services quickly and easily in the cloud. Full description
Keystone
An identity service used in authentication and high-level authorization for users of the OpenStack cloud platform.
Landscape
A systems management and monitoring service from Canonical that allows users to manage multiple Ubuntu machines easily and reduce management and administration costs.
Term
Definition
Metal as a Service (MaaS)
Developed by Canonical, a method of quickly and easily provisioning hardware servers for the deployment of complex services that need to scale up and down dynamically, like Ubuntu’s OpenStack cloud infrastructure.
MultiTenancy/ Multi-Tenant
Typical of many Software as a Service solutions (SaaS), a multitenancy architecture sees multiple customers (tenants) sharing a single instance of a software application, with their own data securely partitioned from other users' data.
MySQL
An open source relational database management system, developed by Sun Microsystems and now managed by Oracle, that is often used in web applications.
NoSQL
A broad class of non-relational database management systems designed for the storage and retrieval of very high volumes of data that exceed the limitations of traditional relational databases. See also: Big Data
Open Cloud
A cloud infrastructure built using free, open source software components. Full description
Proprietary
Cloud software that incurs license costs and/or which has limited interoperability with other software components due to its closed, proprietary APIs.
Open Source
Any piece of software whose source code is open and available for anyone to use, modify, contribute to and improve upon. Open source software is typically free of charge to license and use.
OpenStack
An open source computing platform comprised of multiple, interoperable software components, for creating cost-effective, high-performance private or public clouds. Full description
Platform as a A cloud service for developers and organisations to deploy Service (PaaS) cloud applications using third party virtual machines, operating systems, middleware, networking, storage and hardware. Typically the developer creates and maintains application code and the PaaS provider manages the layers below it.
Term
Definition
Private Cloud
A cloud computing infrastructure that an organisation builds in its own data centre and maintains behind the corporate firewall.
Proprietary
Cloud software that incurs license costs and/or which has limited interoperability with other software components due to its closed, proprietary APIs.
Public Cloud
The public cloud allows organisations to use and deploy software (applications, databases, storage) on systems that are hosted and managed outside their firewalls. It differs from traditional managed services in that the instances are virtualised and can be created, updated and terminated using an API.
Server Image
A file that contains all the information needed to create a new instance of a server virtual machine in a cloud environment. It reduces the time it takes to configure a new server each time one is needed.
Service Migration
If you are using a cloud service vendor, then service migration is when you move your cloud from one vendor to another.
Service An essential part of Cloud, service orchestration allows for the Orchestration automated provisioning of services, applications and workflows so that resources can be scaled or provisioned in the cloud automatically. See also: Juju, Autoscaling, Hyperscale SingleTenancy
In Software as a Service (SaaS), a model by which an individual customer (tenant) has access to a single instance of an application and the infrastructure behind the application serves this one tenant. See also: SaaS, Multi-Tenancy
Software as a A software application that is deployed on a cloud infrastructure Service (SaaS) by a third-party cloud provider and made available to users over a network such as a VPN or the public internet. SaaS is typically deployed on a multitenant model, whereby multiple users share the same application instance and underlying cloud infrastructure. Typically, customers are billed either on a monthly subscription or a pay-as-you-go model, based on the number of users accessing the application, the amount of data stored, or the amount of processor resource consumed.
Term
Definition
Spinning Up
The process of creating and activating a new virtual machine image in a cloud environment. In cloud infrastructures that require high elasticity due to fluctuating user volumes, the ability to spin up new instances quickly and easily is critical.
Ubuntu
The world's most popular distribution of Linux, Ubuntu is a free, open-source operating system that scales all the way from consumer electronics to the desktop, and into the cloud for enterprise computing.
Ubuntu Cloud Guest
An easy way of installing Ubuntu Server instances on any of the leading public clouds or in a private cloud environment. Ubuntu is the most heavily used guest OS on both Amazon AWS and Rackspace Cloud.
Ubuntu Cloud A full OpenStack IaaS platform built into Ubuntu Server version Infrastructure 12.04 LTS and higher, providing all the tools you need to create a private IAAS cloud on your own hardware.
Virtualisation A way of making better use of available hardware resources by running multiple operating systems on one server as "virtual machines", and managing the virtualized software layer separately from the hardware. With its emphasis on decoupling software from hardware, virtualization is a step on the way to cloud computing. Virtualization cannot be thought of as true cloud computing, however, because it does not offer elastic scaling of resources or automated provisioning of new virtual machine instances.
Workload
A term coined by IBM to describe any application or system that is moved into the cloud.
Term Data Definition Big defined By Mark Baker, Ubuntu Server Product Manager, Canonical
Wikipedia defines Big Data as datasets that “grow so large that they become awkward to work with,” presenting difficulties in “capture, storage, search, sharing, analytics, and visualisation.” Typically, datasets grow to enormous sizes when they are captured by always-on devices, from aerial sensory technologies, software logs and cameras, to microphones, wireless sensor networks and optical network components. While Big Data presents significant challenges, it also offers many benefits for organisations looking to understand trends and identify new opportunities. But to accommodate Big Data applications, underlying technology infrastructure must be scalable, powerful and hugely reliable. Applications must be designed to scale well in distributed environments, and deliver results fast. That’s why Big Data applications are often deployed in the cloud, where resources can be added and removed quickly on demand with a ‘pay-as-you-go’ model. For smaller organisations, the cloud is the only financially viable way to access the significant computing resources required.
Canonical White Paper – Ubuntu: Helping Drive Business Insight from Big Data ?
While many proprietary software vendors have cloud offerings and claim to offer virtually unlimited scalability, their commercial model is often a barrier to entry. The standard ‘use more, pay more’ approach doesn’t lend itself to computing elasticity, or to cost-effective Big Data analytics. “Proprietary software doesn’t lend itself to cost-effective Big Data analytics.” Open-source technology is helping organisations of all types and sizes convert massive datasets into meaningful business intelligence. Ubuntu makes this possible with technologies for distributing NoSQL databases, file systems and innovative Big Data applications such as Hadoop, across tens or even hundreds of nodes. Today, Ubuntu is one of the leading operating systems for supporting Big Data applications and new Big Data development – both on dedicated hardware and in the cloud. Our commercial model makes Ubuntu ideal for Big Data, as our software can be deployed on any number of servers with no additional licensing costs, enabling organisations to scale Big Data activities without restrictions.
Term Definition Hyperscale defined By Mark Shuttleworth, Founder, Canonical
Servers used to aspire to being expensive. Powerful. Big. We gave them names like “Hercules” or “Atlas”. The bigger your business, or the bigger your data problem, the bigger the servers you bought. It was all about being beefy – with brands designed to impress, like POWER and Itanium.
The catch, however, is in the cost of provisioning. Hyperscale won’t work economically if every server has to be provisioned, configured and managed as if it were a Hercules or an Atlas. To reap the benefits, we need leaner provisioning processes.
Today, server capacity can be bought as a commodity, based on the total cost of compute. We can get more power by adding more nodes to clusters, rather than buying beefier nodes. We can increase reliability by doubling up, so services keep running when individual nodes fail. Much as RAID changed the storage game, this scale-out philosophy, pioneered by Google, is changing the server landscape.
That’s why Canonical developed Metal as a Service. MAAS makes it easy to set up the hardware on which to deploy any service that needs to scale up and down dynamically – a cloud being just one example. With a simple web interface, you can add, commission, update and recycle servers at will.
In this hyperscale era, each individual node is cheap and wimpy – but together, they’re unstoppable. The horsepower now resides in the cluster, not the node. The reliability of the infrastructure depends on redundancy, rather than heroic performances from specific machines. “The horsepower now resides in the cluster, not the node.”
Webinar – Ubuntu Cloud, with Mark Shuttleworth & Stephen O’Grady of Redmonk
In the hyperscale world, an operating system like Ubuntu makes even more sense. Its freedom from licensing restrictions, together with the labour saving power of tools like MAAS, make it cost-effective, finally, to deploy and manage hundreds of nodes at a time.
Term defined Definition Juju By Mark Baker, Ubuntu Server Product Manager, Canonical
A Juju charm is a collection of instructions that deploys, updates and scales a particular cloud service. When defining a new workload or service, a charm is created for it using whatever system works best. It can be a shell script, it can use puppet, or it can use any other framework you like. This makes it easy to re-use existing tools or expertise that may be present in-house, wrapping it up in a way that will work on the cloud.
Those charms continue to improve and evolve, so cloud deployments become smarter, more efficient and more reliable every time they are updated. In a recent example, work done to reduce the cost per day of a very high-traffic cloud-hosted website was shared immediately with other websites using the same cloud stack. In an enterprise setting, an improvement to the charm for a component in many cloud stacks brings benefit to all users.
Most services can be charmed in an hour or two, at least for initial testing. And investments in a charm pay off every time it is re-used. Charms encapsulate everything a service needs to know about itself, or tell other services about itself, so it’s very easy to re-use them in a different team or environment.
The collection of Juju charms includes all the common components of typical cloud deployments – popular databases, web application servers, load balancing systems, computational frameworks; everything from game servers to finite element analysis is ready for off-the-shelf deployment in the cloud.
“Investment in a charm pays off every time it is re-used.” Canonical maintains a collection of public charms that are developed in the open, under the same transparent governance that has made Ubuntu the leading cloud OS. Each charm distills best practice from the leading devops for that particular service, worldwide. Juju puts them all at devops teams’ fingertips.
Canonical White Paper – Ubuntu: Helping Drive Business Insight from Big Data
Term Definition Open Cloud defined By Susan Wu, Cloud and Virtualization Product Marketing Manager, Canonical
Open-source software is increasingly at the heart of the biggest changes happening in enterprise computing all over the world. Open cloud is a perfect way to illustrate the benefits open source is bringing businesses. The business case for switching to or adopting cloud computing – and in particular, the open cloud – has never been stronger. Enterprises are reducing costs and increasing flexibility without the risk of vendor lock-in. Open clouds let organisations move critical workloads to the cloud with the confidence that they can move from one vendor to another – or on to a private cloud – as they demand. This is because open source technology complies with established open standards. “The business case for switching to the open cloud has never been stronger”
Canonical White Paper – Creating the Open Cloud
As well as delivering many business benefits, open cloud software like Ubuntu 12.04 LTS is also helping devops massively reduce the complexity of cloud projects with deployment and service orchestration tools like Juju and MAAS. These sorts of technologies are streamlining the deployment process, making it quicker and simpler than ever to get applications running in the cloud. The combination of Ubuntu and OpenStack has rapidly become the platform of choice for businesses building private cloud infrastructure.
Term Definition OpenStack defined By Kyle MacDonald, VP of Cloud, Canonical
The OpenStack Foundation is leading the cloud industry in developing the most cutting-edge open enterprise-class cloud platform available. As a founding platinum member of the OpenStack Foundation, Canonical contributes to the project’s governance, technical development and strategy. We’re helping service providers and enterprises, as well as their customers and users, benefit from the open technologies that are making the cloud more powerful, simple and ubiquitous. Ubuntu has been the reference operating system for the OpenStack project since the beginning. That makes it the easiest and most trusted route to an OpenStack cloud, whether for private use or as a commercial public cloud offering. We include it in every download of Ubuntu Server, giving us a huge interest in its continuing development.
Case Study – Mercadolibre Builds 1,000-Node Private Cloud with OpenStack and Ubuntu
OpenStack developers are building and testing on Ubuntu every single day, which is why Ubuntu can fairly claim to be the most tightly integrated OS with OpenStack – and the most stringently tested. Today, thousands of global enterprises and service providers are deploying their cloud infrastructures on Ubuntu and OpenStack. Organisations like Mercadolibre, Internap and Nectar are running mission critical applications on their Ubuntu OpenStack clouds. Ubuntu and OpenStack are also powering clouds at the likes of HP, AT&T, Rackspace and Dell. Over recent months, other technology vendors have recognised the lead and impact that OpenStack is making in the market and have announced their commitment to the project. We should see even more of them joining the party and coming up with OpenStack offerings in the months to come. But in the meantime, the best way to build your OpenStack cloud is through the proven, rock-solid combination of OpenStack and Ubuntu.
Term Definition Find out More
We hope you’ve found this glossary useful. To find out more about building a cloud infrastructure with Ubuntu, visit the following resources: To find out more about cloud computing with Ubuntu: www.ubuntu.com/I-cloud To learn about Ubuntu Advantage, the Canonical support programme for your Ubuntu cloud deployments: ubuntu.com To speak directly to a member of the Canonical team: +44 (0)20 763 2471 Thank you for reading! The Canonical Cloud Team
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