Welcome to our comprehensive DevOps Terminology Guide! As the field of DevOps continues to evolve and expand, staying updated with its unique jargon is crucial for professionals in the industry. This extensive list serves as a resource for both newcomers and seasoned veterans, offering clear and concise definitions for essential DevOps terms. Whether you're a developer, operations specialist, or just curious about the world of DevOps, this guide is tailored to enrich your understanding of its key concepts and practices. Dive in to navigate the language of DevOps with ease and confidence!
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- Adaptive Planning: Adaptive Planning in the realm of Agile DevOps is a strategic, flexible approach to planning that accommodates and embraces changes, rather than strictly adhering to a fixed path. It acknowledges that …
- Agent: A software agent is designed to automate certain tasks related to the development and operation of software systems. These tasks may include building and testing code, deploying code to production …
- Agentless: In the context of DevOps, "agentless" typically refers to the use of tools or technologies that do not require the installation of a software agent on the target system in order to perform certain …
- Agile Software Development: Agile software development is a set of values, principles, and practices that aim to improve the speed and flexibility of software development by focusing on rapid iteration and continuous delivery of …
- Application Release Automation (ARA): Application-release automation (ARA) is a process or set of tools and practices that aim to automate and streamline the process of releasing software updates and new features to production …
- Artifact: In the context of DevOps, an artifact is a file or set of files that is produced as part of the software development and deployment process. Artifacts may include things such as compiled code, …
- Automated Deployment: Automated deployment is the use of tools and processes to automate the process of releasing code and other artifacts to production environments. Automated deployment can help teams to reduce the time …
- Automated Provisioning: Automated provisioning is the use of tools and processes to automate the process of setting up and configuring infrastructure in a consistent and repeatable manner. Automated provisioning can help …
- Automated Testing: Automated testing is the use of tools and processes to automate the testing of software, in order to reduce the time and effort required to test code, and to improve the reliability and coverage of …
- Autonomy: In the context of DevOps, autonomy refers to the use of tools and processes to automate various tasks and processes within the software development and operations lifecycle. This can include things …
- Availability: In the context of DevOps, availability refers to the ability of a system or service to be accessible and functioning as expected. Availability is typically measured as a percentage of uptime, and is …
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- Backend Services: Backend services refer to the server-side of a software application or website, encompassing databases, servers, and applications that work behind the scenes to manage and process data. These services …
- Behavior-Driven Development (BDD): Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) is a method of development where tests are written in a more natural language syntax instead of purely code-based tests. BDD is an evolution from Test-Driven …
- Best Practice: "Best Practice" refers to a set of guidelines, ethics, or ideas that represent the most efficient or prudent course of action, in a given business, industry, or professional context. Best practices …
- Blameless Culture: A Blameless Culture is an organizational approach that encourages open discussion, collaboration, and learning, particularly when things go wrong. In the context of DevOps, a blameless culture is …
- Blameless Post-Mortem: A Blameless Post-Mortem is a specific type of retrospective analysis conducted after an incident or failure has occurred, with the primary goal of understanding what went wrong and how to prevent …
- Blue/Green Deployment: Blue/green deployments are a DevOps strategy that allow teams to safely and efficiently release new software updates to production. The approach involves running two identical production environments …
- Branching: Branching is a key concept in DevOps that refers to the practice of creating separate versions of code within a version control system, such as Git. This allows multiple developers to work on the same …
- Build Agent: A build agent is an important component in a DevOps pipeline that helps to automate the software build process. A build agent acts as a bridge between the build server and the development environment, …
- Build Artifact Repository: A Build Artifact Repository, also known as a Binary Repository, is a central storage location where build artifacts and packages are stored, versioned, and managed. It is a crucial component of a …
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- Canary Release: A canary release is a deployment methodology where a small percentage of servers are chosen to run new code releases. If those new servers are running as expected, more servers are chosen to run new …
- Capacity Management: Capacity management is the process of planning, designing, and controlling the use of resources in a DevOps environment. The goal of capacity management is to ensure that the necessary resources are …
- Capacity Test: A capacity test is a type of performance test that is used in DevOps to determine the maximum load that a system can handle before it becomes unavailable or starts to degrade in performance. The goal …
- Cloud DevOps: Imagine you're a pilot navigating through the skies with ultimate ease and precision—that's what Cloud DevOps does but in the digital realm!
- Commit: Create a checkpoint for code at a point in time. A commit represents a unit of work being completed.
- Configuration Management: Early IT operations would make manual changes to systems that were hard to track and would lead to system outages if not completed properly. Configuration managed mains to solve this by ensuring that …
- Container Image: A container image is a zip file of a filesystem. When run, a container image is unzipped and resources are assigned from a CGroup to start the image.
- Containerization: Containerization is the act of taking an application that runs on bare metal and transforming it to run inside a container.
- Containers: Containers are slices of a Linux machine's resources via CGroups. This allows for more fine-grained slicing and optimization of resources in an environment.
- Continuous Delivery: Continuous delivery is the act of building workflows, processes, and technology that allow for rapid delivery of valuable technology to customers with the lowest delay possible.
- Continuous Delivery Pipeline (CDP): A Continuous Delivery Pipeline is a streamlined, automated process that software follows from the moment it's created to the moment it's ready for users to enjoy. It's like a conveyor belt in a …
- Continuous Deployment: Continuous deployment is the act of deploying technology changes to production many times per day.
- Continuous Improvement: Continuous improvement is a systematic, ongoing effort to enhance products, services, or processes. This approach involves regularly examining and improving operations to boost efficiency and quality. …
- Continuous Integration: Continuous integration is the act of pulling together code changes, automated testing, and infrastructure configuration management into a single artifact and running automated testing to ensure the …
- Continuous Quality: Continuous quality is the act of consistent review of work products (code changes) against quality standards. This can be done manually through code reviews, or automatically via tools.
- Continuous Testing: Continuous testing is the idea that every change should be run through testing before being deployed to production. This can be done manually or via automation tools. Strategies such as TDD or BDD …
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- Dark Launch: In computer lingo, a "dark launch" is when new features or updates are quietly released to a small group of users or in a hidden, isolated environment. It's like a secret test run without the whole …
- Deployment: You've built a fantastic robot, and now it's time to let it loose and do its job. That moment of setting your creation free and putting it to work—that's what we call "deployment" in the tech world.
- Deployment Pipeline: Imagine a well-organized assembly line in a factory, but for software. A deployment pipeline is like a super organized, step-by-step pathway that your new software or updates follow before they go …
- Developer Ergonomics: Developer Ergonomics is a comprehensive approach focused on optimizing the comfort, efficiency, and productivity of software developers by designing work environments and systems that cater to their …
- Developer Experience (DX): See Developer Ergonomics above.
- DevOps: DevOps is the merging of Development and Operations into a singular team. This ensures that a global perspective is taken by a team and focus is changed from pure feature development into a …
- DevOps as a Service (DaaS): DevOps as a Service (DaaS) is like having a toolbox in the cloud that's packed with everything you need to supercharge your DevOps game. It offers tools, expert know-how, and smart practices to guide …
- DevOps Engineer: A DevOps engineer is like a digital bridge builder! Imagine a person who helps teams in a company work together smoothly, like a well-oiled machine. DevOps stands for Development and Operations, so …
- DevOps Environment: Imagine it as a supercharged playground where DevOps teams work their magic to create, test, and launch awesome software.
- DevSecOps: DevSecOps is the practice of integrating security as code into DevOps practices.
- Disaster Recovery: The act of recovering systems in the event that primary production systems become unusable. This is usually tied with a secondary warm production environment that is flipped over to when production …
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- Event-Driven Architecture: An event-driven architecture is a concept of triggering events in a publisher-subscriber relationship to effect change in a system. More traditional architectures would rely on information being …
- Exploratory Testing: Developing tests against a system that is well outside of the intended scope of that system.
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- Fail Fast: Big bang releases don't work. Fail Fast is a method of taking changes and shrinking them down to bite-sized chunks where failing can be done in an extremely low-risk way.
- Fail Safely: Fail Safely is a concept in technology and engineering that refers to the design and behavior of systems to enter a secure, controlled state when they encounter a malfunction, error, or failure. This …
- Full Stack Engineer: Meet the Full Stack Engineer, a mythical being in the world of software development, possessing a rare and diverse set of skills and knowledge. This magical being is revered for its ability to …
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- GitOps: GitOps is a modern approach to managing and automating the deployment and operation of software systems. It involves utilizing Git, a version control system, as the single source of truth for both …
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- Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS): Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) is when you are able to utilize virtualized infrastructure resources over the internet remotely. AWS and Azure are prime examples of IaaS.
- Infrastructure DevOps Engineer: Let's unravel the role of an "Infrastructure DevOps Engineer." Picture this: you're like the architect and caretaker of a skyscraper. You design, build, and ensure that the building stands strong and …
- Integration Testing: Integration testing is the act of pulling together code changes, automated testing, and infrastructure configuration management into a single artifact and running automated testing to ensure the …
- Interactive Command Language: An "Interactive Command Language" refers to a type of computer language designed to facilitate direct communication between the user and the system through a series of commands or instructions. This …
- Internal Development Platform (IDP): An Internal Development Platform (IDP) is a strategic framework that involves creating or leveraging a suite of standardized tools and guardrails around composable technology components designed to …
- Issue Tracking: Let's face it, defects are going to happen. Defects are logged as issues into tools like Jira to accomplish tracking those issues and where they are in the process of getting fixed.
- Iteration: In the context of Agile DevOps, the term "iteration" refers to a specific, consistent time period during which a development team works to complete a set of work that has been previously planned. This …
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- Lead Time: Lead time is the amount of time it will take between when work is planned and the work is ready for use in production.
- Limp Mode: Limp Mode in the context of technology refers to a fail-safe state that a system enters when it detects a malfunction or critical error. This mode is designed to protect the system from further damage …
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- Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF): Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) is a critical metric used in the realm of reliability engineering. It represents the average time elapsed between successive failures of a system, component, or …
- Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR): Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR) is a crucial performance metric in the realm of incident and problem management. It represents the average time taken to restore a system, service, or product to its fully …
- Microservices: In the industry, you will hear the terms monolithic and microservices. A monolithic architecture composes all application functionality into a single application. Microservices deploy smaller …
- Minimum Viable Product: A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is the most basic version of a product that allows a development team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning with the least effort. In essence, it is a …
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- Orchestration: Events in a system, like deployments, need to be coordinated between systems to prevent impact to end users. An example of orchestration would be blue/green deployments. Automation will need to …
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- Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS): Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) is a cloud computing model that provides customers with a platform to develop, run, and manage applications without the complexity of building and maintaining the …
- Production: A production service level refers to the setting where software applications or systems are hosted and made available for actual use by end-users or clients. It is the final stage in the software …
- Project Management: Project Management is the discipline of initiating, planning, executing, ushering, and closing the work of a team to achieve specific goals within a specified time. It involves the application of …
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- Real Time: Real time refers to the processing of data or the execution of tasks that occur simultaneously with the events they correspond to, without perceivable delay. In real-time systems, data processing and …
- Redirect: In the context of HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol), a redirect is a way to forward both users and search engines from one URL to another. It's a server response that instructs the client to fetch a …
- Regression Testing: Regression Testing is a type of software testing aimed at ensuring that new code changes do not adversely affect the existing functionalities of a system. In the DevOps world, regression testing is a …
- Release Orchestration: Coordinating activities of a release in technology. Usually, a release is not as simple as bumping a code version, there may be lots of additional steps like database updates, redirect changes, …
- Rollback: A rollback is the process of reverting a system, application, or database to a previous state, typically to undo changes that have led to errors, performance issues, or system failures. In the DevOps …
- Root Cause Analysis (RCA): Root Cause Analysis (RCA) is a systematic approach for identifying the underlying cause of a problem or issue. In the realm of DevOps, it's a critical tool for improving system reliability, enhancing …
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- Sandbox Environment: In the context of DevOps, a sandbox environment refers to a controlled and isolated testing environment where software developers and operations teams can experiment, develop, and test their …
- Self-Managing Flow: In DevOps, a "self-managing flow" refers to a way of organizing work and processes that allows teams to function autonomously and efficiently. Imagine it as a well-organized assembly line where each …
- Self-Service Deployment: Self-Service deployment refers to a practice or approach that empowers development and operations teams to independently and autonomously deploy software applications or infrastructure changes without …
- Serverless: Serverless is a cloud computing execution model that represents a significant shift in how applications are developed and deployed. In this model, the cloud provider takes on the responsibility of …
- Single Point of Truth: Single Point of Truth refers to a principle or concept that emphasizes the importance of having a centralized, authoritative, and reliable source of information that serves as the definitive reference …
- Source Control: A system like GitHub where code can be pushed. Source control accumulates all code changes in a central place where build systems can pull that code to create artifacts and kick off CI/CD.
- Sprint: In Agile DevOps, a "sprint" is a concept borrowed from the Scrum framework, representing a short, fixed-length period—commonly two to four weeks—during which a development team completes a set amount …
- Stability: In the context of DevOps, stability refers to the reliability, consistency, and robustness of software systems and applications throughout their development, deployment, and operations lifecycle. It …
- Staging Environment: A staging environment refers to a pre-production environment that replicates the production environment as closely as possible. It serves as an intermediate step between development and production, …
- Story Points: In the realm of Agile software development and DevOps, story points serve as a unit of measure to gauge the complexity and effort needed along with amount of risk and ambiguity to implement a user …
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- Technical Debt: The term "Technical Debt" takes on a particularly significant role. Technical Debt refers to the implicit cost of taking shortcuts, making quick fixes, or using outdated technologies in software …
- Test Automation: In the exciting world of DevOps, "Test Automation" serves as a pivotal element that significantly enhances software development and delivery processes. Test Automation involves the use of specialized …
- Traditional SDLC: The term "Traditional SDLC" refers to the Software Development Life Cycle, a classical model used in the design, development, and deployment of software systems. This approach often employs a linear …
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- Unit Testing: The act of writing tests for specific functions of an application to ensure those functions perform as designed.
- User Acceptance Test: End users test a solution to ensure that it meets requirements.
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- Virtual Machine (VM): Programmatically chopping up server resources so that many virtual servers can be run on top of a single physical server.
