This glossary focuses on terms teams actually use when planning infrastructure, troubleshooting incidents, and evaluating providers.
Core Terms
- Uptime: Percentage of time a service is available to users.
- Latency: Time it takes for a request to travel and return.
- TTFB: Time to First Byte; a key server response indicator.
- CDN: Distributed edge network used to deliver static assets faster.
- DNS: System that maps domain names to server addresses.
- SSL/TLS: Encryption layer for secure client-server communication.
- Backup: Copy of data used for recovery after failure or deletion.
- Restore Point: Specific backup snapshot you can recover to.
- Firewall: Rule-based traffic filtering at network or host level.
- WAF: Web Application Firewall for HTTP-level threat filtering.
Application and Operations Terms
- Load Balancer: Component that distributes traffic across multiple instances.
- Autoscaling: Automatic resource adjustment based on demand.
- Container: Isolated runtime package for application deployment.
- CI/CD: Automated build, test, and deployment pipeline.
- SLA: Service Level Agreement defining support and availability targets.
- Incident: Unplanned event that degrades or interrupts service.
- Postmortem: Structured analysis after an incident with corrective actions.
- RTO: Recovery Time Objective, target time to restore service.
- RPO: Recovery Point Objective, acceptable data-loss window.
- Observability: Ability to understand system behavior from logs, metrics, and traces.
Use this glossary as a shared language inside your team. Clear terminology improves architecture decisions and reduces incident confusion.
Infrastructure KPI Baseline
Use a small KPI baseline to keep decisions objective: uptime, TTFB, error rate, and restore time. Regular review of these metrics improves prioritization and prevents reactive firefighting.
- Track weekly response-time and error-rate changes.
- Validate backup success and restoration duration monthly.
- Document recurring incidents and prevention tasks.
