Kubernetes & DevOps Dictionary
The worlds of Kubernetes and DevOps are filled full of jargon and acronyms that can be a minefield for everyone, not just newbies! Here’s a handy reference list of some of the most common terms and their meanings.
API (Application Programming Interface)
An API, or Application Programming Interface, allows different software applications to communicate with each other by defining rules and protocols for requests and responses. APIs play a crucial role in modern software development, enabling integration between systems, services, and platforms. Whether connecting microservices in a cloud infrastructure or building custom...
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Automation
Automation in the context of DevOps refers to the process of using technology to perform tasks and processes in the software development lifecycle without manual intervention. It plays a critical role in enabling the continuous integration, continuous delivery (CI/CD), and deployment of software, as well as improving collaboration between development...
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CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery)
CI/CD stands for Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery/Deployment, which are software development practices designed to enhance the development workflow and speed up the release cycle. Here’s a breakdown of both: Continuous Integration (CI): Purpose: To automate the integration of code changes from multiple developers into a shared repository. How it...
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Cloud-native
Cloud-native refers to a set of principles and practices used to build and run scalable applications that fully leverage the advantages of cloud computing. Cloud-native applications are designed to be highly available, resilient, and scalable, making use of modern cloud infrastructure and services. These applications are typically developed using microservices,...
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CloudFormation
AWS CloudFormation is a service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) that allows users to define, provision, and manage AWS infrastructure resources using code. With CloudFormation, infrastructure is defined in templates written in either JSON or YAML formats, which are used to create, update, or delete AWS resources such as...
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Containers
Containers are a fundamental technology in cloud architecture and Kubernetes, enabling efficient and scalable application deployment and management. In the context of both, containers encapsulate an application and its dependencies in a lightweight, portable, and isolated environment, making them ideal for cloud-native development. Here's a detailed explanation of containers in...
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Continuous Delivery (CD)
Continuous Delivery (CD) is a software development practice in which code changes are automatically built, tested, and prepared for release to production, ensuring that the software is always in a deployable state. In Continuous Delivery, every change that passes the automated testing pipeline can be deployed to production, but the...
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Continuous Deployment (CD)
Continuous Deployment (CD) is a software development practice in which code changes are automatically built, tested, and deployed to production without manual intervention. It is an extension of Continuous Delivery, but with the added step of automatically deploying every change that passes the automated tests to production environments. Continuous Deployment...
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Continuous Integration (CI)
Continuous Integration (CI) is a software development practice in which developers regularly integrate their code changes into a shared repository, usually several times a day. Each integration triggers an automated process that builds and tests the code to detect and resolve issues early in the development cycle. The goal of...
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DevOps
DevOps is a set of practices, tools, and cultural philosophies that integrates and automates the work of software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops) teams. The goal of DevOps is to shorten the software development lifecycle, improve collaboration between teams, and deliver high-quality software faster and more reliably. It emphasizes...
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Docker
Docker is an open-source platform that enables developers to automate the deployment, scaling, and management of applications inside lightweight, portable containers. Containers package an application and its dependencies together into a single unit, ensuring that the software runs consistently across different environments. Docker has become a foundational tool in DevOps...
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ELK Stack
ELK Stack is a powerful collection of open-source tools that is widely used for searching, analyzing, and visualizing log data in real-time. The stack is composed of three main components: Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana, each playing a crucial role in the data processing pipeline. The ELK Stack is often used...
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GitHub Actions
GitHub Actions is a powerful automation and CI/CD (Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment) tool provided by GitHub. It allows developers to automate, build, test, and deploy their code directly from their GitHub repositories. GitHub Actions uses a system of workflows defined in YAML files that can be triggered by various...
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Grafana
Grafana is an open-source analytics and visualization platform used to monitor, query, and visualize metrics collected from various data sources. It provides users with interactive dashboards and real-time insights into the performance and health of their systems, applications, and infrastructure. Grafana is widely used in conjunction with monitoring tools like...
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Helm
Helm is a package manager for Kubernetes that helps developers and operators define, install, and manage applications and services on Kubernetes clusters. Helm simplifies the deployment of complex Kubernetes applications by packaging them as charts, which are pre-configured Kubernetes resources (e.g., deployments, services, ConfigMaps) that can be easily deployed and...
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Immutable Infrastructure
Immutable Infrastructure is a modern approach to managing infrastructure where servers and other components are never modified after deployment. Instead of updating or patching an existing system, a new, fully configured system is built and deployed to replace the old one. This ensures that every deployment is consistent and reproducible,...
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Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is a practice in which infrastructure — such as servers, storage, networks, and other IT resources — is managed and provisioned through machine-readable configuration files, rather than through manual hardware configuration or interactive configuration tools. IaC enables the automation of infrastructure management by treating it the...
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Jenkins
Jenkins is an open-source automation server used to automate parts of the software development lifecycle, such as building, testing, and deploying applications. Jenkins is a key tool in implementing Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery/Deployment (CD) pipelines, allowing developers to integrate code into a shared repository frequently and ensuring the...
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JSON
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a lightweight, text-based data format used to represent structured data. It is easy for humans to read and write, and easy for machines to parse and generate. Although JSON is derived from JavaScript, it is language-agnostic, meaning it can be used with most modern programming...
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Kubernetes
Kubernetes is an open-source platform designed to automate the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. It helps in running applications in a highly available, scalable, and efficient manner, especially across clusters of machines. Key Concepts in Kubernetes: Containers: Kubernetes manages applications that are packaged into containers. Containers bundle the...
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