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General

This glossary has been designed to give you a clear and concise understanding of the key terms used in the cloud field, making it easier for you to navigate and use it.

A​

Access Control List (ACL)​

Reference to granular permissions, which specify which users or system processes have access to a given object or resource, as well as the operations they are authorized to perform.

Application Programming Interface (API)​

A set of rules and protocols that allows different software applications to communicate with each other, making it easier to exchange data and functionality.
Find out more: What is an API? | api.gouv.fr

Availability Zone​

An isolated data center within a region, designed to be fault-tolerant. Availability zones allow users to deploy applications and services redundantly to ensure high availability and continuity of operations in the event of a data center failure.

B​

Database​

An organized set of data stored and accessed electronically. Databases are designed to make it easier to collect, store, manage and retrieve large amounts of information.

Bastion​

A server specifically designed and configured to be the secure entry point into a private network, often used to administer other servers or devices within the network. Bastions are generally hardened against attacks and are used to minimize the exposure of internal resources to the Internet.

Block Storage​

A data storage system that divides information into fixed-size blocks, each with a unique address, enabling fast and efficient access, often used for databases and applications requiring high performance.
Find out more: Block Storage

Bridge​

A device that connects two distinct network segments (VPC) and manages data traffic between them privately.
Find out more: Compute Bridge concepts | Numspot Docs

C​

Client Gateway​

Allows remote users to securely access internal network resources as if they were directly connected to that network.
Find out more: Client Gateway

Trusted cloud​

Reference to cloud computing services that are designed to meet strict requirements for security, confidentiality and compliance. These services are often used by organizations that handle sensitive or critical data.
Find out more: What is a trusted cloud? | Numspot

Private cloud, public cloud, hybrid cloud​

A private cloud is a cloud infrastructure dedicated to a single organization. It may be hosted on the organization's premises or by a third-party service provider, but it is always used exclusively by that organization.
A public cloud is a cloud infrastructure shared between several organizations and managed by a third-party service provider. The resources are accessible over the Internet and are often billed on a pay-as-you-go basis.
A hybrid cloud combines elements of private and public clouds, allowing organizations to take advantage of the benefits of both models.
Find out more: Private cloud, public cloud, hybrid cloud: clarifying the question to find your way | Numspot

Sovereign cloud​

Reference to cloud computing services that are subject to the jurisdiction and regulations of a specific country, often for reasons of national security, data confidentiality and legal compliance. These services are generally hosted and managed locally, ensuring that sensitive data remains under the control of local laws and standards.
Find out more: What is the sovereign cloud? | Numspot

Cluster​

A group of servers or compute nodes that work together to provide increased processing and storage power, enabling better performance, high availability and scalability of applications and services.

Command Line Interface (CLI)​

A way of interacting with a computer or program by typing text commands, offering precise control and task automation.

In the SNC framework, the term sponsor is used to designate the customer or entity that requests cloud services from a qualified provider.

Service account​

An account that is attached to a machine (system) account rather than to a physical user. These accounts make it possible to perform "machine-to-machine" processing or automated operations without human intervention.

User account​

An individual account of a natural person. User accounts can have different levels of access and permissions depending on their roles and responsibilities.

Compute​

Reference to compute resources, such as processors (CPU) and memory (RAM), provided by a cloud service provider to run applications and workloads.
Find out more: Compute concepts | Numspot Docs

Container​

A standard unit of software that packages code and all its dependencies so that the application runs quickly and reliably from one computing environment to another. Containers enable operating-system-level virtualization, providing lightweight and portable isolation for applications.

Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR)​

Allows routers to organize IP addresses more efficiently into multiple subnets. A subnet is a smaller network that exists within a network. For example, all the devices connected to a router are on the same subnet and have the same IP address prefix.

D​

DevOps​

A software development approach that combines development (Dev) and operations (Ops) practices to improve collaboration and efficiency between development teams and operations teams. The aim is to shorten the systems development life cycle while ensuring continuous high-quality delivery.

A service that allows you to establish a dedicated and secure network connection between a customer's infrastructure and a cloud service provider, offering a more reliable and high-performing alternative to a standard Internet connection.
Find out more: DirectLink

Docker​

Docker software is a containerization technology that enables the creation and use of Linux containers.
Find out more: What is Docker? | Docker Docs

Domain Name System (DNS)​

A system that translates domain names, which are easy for humans to remember, into the numerical IP addresses needed to locate and identify devices and services on the Internet. Find out more: What is DNS? | Cloudflare

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)​

A network protocol used to automatically assign IP addresses and other network configuration parameters to devices on a network, thereby simplifying network management.
Find out more: DHCP

E​

Space​

A virtual workspace where resources are allocated and managed.

G​

Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)​

A specialized processor designed to accelerate the rendering of images and graphics, as well as to perform parallel computations, often used in video games, video processing and artificial intelligence.
Find out more: GPU

H​

Health Data Hosting (HDS)​

A regulatory framework that defines the conditions under which health data may be hosted, in order to ensure its security and confidentiality.
Find out more: HDS certification - Everything you need to know | e-santé

I​

Identity Access Management (IAM)​

A security framework that manages digital identities and user access to IT resources, ensuring that the right people have access to the right resources at the right time.
Find out more: IAM concepts | Numspot Docs

Image​

A complete, saved copy of a virtual machine, including the operating system, applications and configurations. This image can be used to quickly deploy new identical virtual machine instances.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)​

A field of computer science that aims to create machines capable of performing tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as reasoning, learning, perception and decision-making.
Find out more: Artificial intelligence (AI): what are we talking about? | Ministry of Higher Education and Research

ISO/IEC 27001​

An international standard that specifies the requirements for an information security management system (ISMS). It provides a framework for establishing, implementing, operating, monitoring, reviewing, maintaining and improving an ISMS. The aim of this standard is to help organizations manage the security of their information assets in a systematic and proactive way, taking into account information security risks.
Find out more: What is ISO/IEC 27001? | ISO

Internet Gateway​

A network component that enables communication between a local network or a virtual private network (VPC) and the Internet. It serves as an exit point for outbound traffic to the Internet and as an entry point for inbound traffic coming from the Internet, thereby facilitating access to online resources for instances within the network.
Find out more: Internet Gateway

K​

Key Pair​

A pair of cryptographic keys, one public and one private, used to authenticate and secure access to cloud resources.
Find out more: Key Pair

Kubelet​

An essential agent that runs on each node (worker node) of a cluster Kubernetes; it communicates with the control plane to receive instructions, ensures that pods and their containers are created, started and maintained according to specifications, monitors their health, manages the node's resources, and reports the state of the node and pods to the control plane.

Kubernetes​

An open-source platform designed to automate the deployment, scaling and management of containerized applications. It provides tools to orchestrate containers across multiple hosts, thereby making it easier to manage distributed applications and microservices.
Find out more: Overview | Kubernetes

Kube Proxy​

An agent that runs on each Kubernetes node and manages network rules to ensure traffic routing between services and pods.

L​

Load Balancer​

A device that distributes network traffic or processing requests across several servers, in order to optimize resource usage, maximize throughput, minimize response time and avoid overloading any individual server.
Find out more: Load Balancer

M​

Microservice​

An architectural approach to developing software applications, where a large application is built as a set of small, independent services. Each microservice is designed to accomplish a specific task, runs in its own process, and communicates with other services through well-defined interfaces.

N​

Namespace​

A logical space in a Kubernetes cluster that allows groups of resources to be isolated, organized and managed separately, thereby facilitating segmentation, access control and the application of quotas within a single cluster.

Network Address Translation (NAT)​

A technique used to modify IP addresses in data packets as they pass through a router or firewall. This allows several devices on a local network to access the Internet using a single public IP address, thereby improving security and conserving IP addresses.

Network Interface Card (NIC)​

Allows a computer to connect to a network, such as a local area network (LAN) or the Internet, by providing a physical interface between the computer and the network cable or wireless connection.

Node​

A physical or virtual machine in a Kubernetes cluster, which provides the necessary resources (processor, memory, storage) and runs pods using components such as kubelet, kube-proxy and a container runtime.

Nodepool​

A group of nodes in a Kubernetes cluster with the same configuration and common management.

O​

Object Storage​

A data storage system that manages information as objects, each accompanied by metadata and a unique identifier, rather than as hierarchical files.

One Time Password (OTP)​

A short, self-generated sequence of numbers provided by an application. This sequence is only available for a short period, thereby making any malicious use more difficult.

OpenAPI​

A specification for describing REST API. It allows developers to define the format of requests and responses for an API, as well as the available endpoints and supported operations.
Find out more: What is OpenAPI? | OpenAPI Initiative

OpenID Connect (OIDC)​

A simple identity layer based on OAuth 2.0, an authorization mechanism.
Find out more: What is OpenID Connect (OIDC)? | Auth0

OpenShift​

A Kubernetes-based enterprise container platform, developed by Red Hat, that allows developers to deploy, manage and scale containerized applications efficiently and securely.
Find out more: Red Hat OpenShift enterprise application platform

Organization​

An entity or structure that brings together users, resources and projects under a single administrative entity, thereby making it easier to manage access, permissions and shared resources.

P​

Pod​

The basic unit of Kubernetes, grouping one or more containers that share the same network and the same storage and are managed together as a single deployable entity in the cluster.

PostgreSQL (PSQL)​

An open-source relational database management system, known for its robustness, its standards compliance and its ability to handle complex workloads.
Find out more: About | PostgreSQL

Permission​

Can be assigned to a user or service account independently of a role.

Protocol​

A set of rules and conventions that define how data is exchanged between devices in a network. Protocols ensure that communication takes place in an orderly and predictable manner, by specifying aspects such as the format of messages, the order of messages sent and received, and how to detect and correct errors. Common examples of protocols include TCP/IP, HTTP and FTP.

Public IP​

Unique addresses assigned to devices connected to the Internet, enabling their identification and communication on the global network.

R​

Region​

A geographical area where a cloud service provider hosts its data centers.

Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)​

An access control system based on the role assigned to the user.

Route Table​

A database or file that contains the rules used to determine where traffic should be directed in a network. It associates network destinations with output interfaces or gateways, thereby allowing routers to make decisions about how to forward traffic to its final destination.
Find out more: Route Table

S​

Security Group​

A set of network filtering rules, acting as a virtual firewall, that controls the inbound and outbound traffic of the cloud resources to which it is associated.
Find out more: Security Group

SecNumCloud (SNC)​

A French security label created by the French National Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI). It aims to certify cloud services that comply with strict requirements for security and data protection.
Find out more: SecNumCloud for cloud service providers | ANSSI

Managed Services​

Outsourced services where a provider takes charge of the management and operation of certain IT functions or infrastructures, allowing businesses to focus on their core activities.

Snapshot​

A point-in-time copy of the state of a storage volume or a virtual machine at a given moment. Snapshots are used to back up data or configurations, allowing them to be restored later if needed, such as recovery after a failure or a configuration error.

Subnet​

A logical subdivision of an IP network. Subnets are used to divide a network into several smaller and more manageable segments, which can improve network performance, simplify management and strengthen security by isolating different groups of devices or services.

T​

Tag​

Metadata in the form of a key-value pair used to organize and manage resources more efficiently.

Terraform​

An open-source tool developed by HashiCorp, used for infrastructure as code (IaC). It allows users to define and provision data center infrastructure using a declarative configuration language.
Find out more: Terraform | HashiCorp Developer

Time-based One Time Password (TOTP)​

An algorithm for generating OTP.

Authentication token​

Also called an access token or Bearer authentication, the token added by client requests that allows resources to verify the validity of the authentication of the user issuing the request. It is part of the OAuth2 protocol.

U​

User​

An individual who interacts with cloud services and resources. This can include administrators who manage resources and developers who create and deploy applications.

Universally Unique Identifier (UUID)​

A system that allows distributed systems to uniquely identify a piece of information without significant central coordination.
Find out more: RFC 9562 - Universally Unique IDentifier (UUID)

V​

Virtual Gateway​

A network component that allows different virtual networks to be connected, or a virtual network to be linked to a physical network, thereby facilitating communication and data transfer between them.
Find out more: Virtual Gateway

Virtual Machine (VM)​

A software environment that emulates a physical computer, allowing programs and operating systems to be run in isolation on a single physical machine.
Find out more: Virtual Machine (VM)

Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)​

An isolated virtual network within a public cloud, allowing network resources such as subnets, IP addresses, route tables and firewalls to be defined and controlled.

Virtual Private Network (VPN)​

A technology that creates a secure, encrypted connection over a less secure network, such as the Internet, allowing users to send and receive data privately and securely.

Volume​

A unit of data storage that can be attached to a virtual machine instance or a container. Volumes are used to store data persistently, independently of the lifespan of the instance to which they are attached.