Cloud Terms Explained: A Plain-English Glossary

A

AMD / Arm

Two different chip architectures. AMD is the traditional type. Arm uses less power and is increasingly common in cloud servers. Oracle's free Arm A1 instances use Arm chips.

API

A way for two pieces of software to talk to each other. When your app calls a payment processor or weather service, it's using an API.

Aurora

Amazon's premium database product. More powerful than standard RDS, but significantly more expensive. Not a free tier option.

Autonomous Database

Oracle's self-managing database. It handles backups, tuning, and updates on its own. Available on Oracle's free tier with limits.

B

Billing Alarm

An alert that emails you when your cloud spending hits a threshold you set. Essential to set before doing anything else.

C

CDN (Content Delivery Network)

A network of servers spread around the world that stores copies of your site. Visitors load from the server closest to them, making things faster.

CI (Continuous Integration)

An automated process that builds and tests your code every time you push a change. Usually not needed for simple static sites.

Cloud

Someone else's servers that you rent by the hour or month instead of buying your own hardware.

Cold Start

A brief delay the first time a serverless function runs after sitting idle. Usually a fraction of a second but can matter for time-sensitive apps.

Compute

The processing power part of cloud hosting. When someone says "compute instance," they mean a virtual server.

CPU / vCPU

The processor. vCPU stands for virtual CPU — a share of a physical processor assigned to your server. More vCPUs means more processing power.

D

D1

Cloudflare's serverless database product. Runs SQLite, free tier included, works natively with Cloudflare Workers.

DDoS

An attack where thousands of machines flood a server with traffic to take it down. Cloudflare's core business is blocking these.

DNS

The system that translates domain names (like google.com) into the actual server addresses your browser needs to connect. Cloudflare started as a DNS provider.

DynamoDB

Amazon's NoSQL database. Fast and flexible. Part of AWS's always-free tier up to certain limits.

E

EC2

Amazon's virtual server product. The t2.micro and t3.micro free tier instances are EC2 instances.

Edge Network / Edge Computing

Running code on servers physically close to your users rather than in one central location. Cloudflare Workers run on the edge.

Elastic IP

A fixed, permanent IP address on AWS. Useful but costs money if not attached to a running server.

F

Free Tier

A usage allowance that cloud providers offer at no cost, either permanently (Always Free) or for a limited time (12 months or trial credits).

G

GB-seconds

How AWS measures Lambda usage. 1 GB-second = running a function with 1 GB of memory for 1 second. The math gets complicated fast but the free allowance is generous.

GCP (Google Cloud Platform)

Google's cloud hosting service. Competes directly with AWS and Azure.

GitHub

A website for storing and managing code. Many cloud providers connect directly to it so that pushing new code automatically deploys your site.

H

HTML / CSS / JavaScript

The three core languages of the web. HTML is the content, CSS is the styling, JavaScript makes things interactive.

Hugo

A tool for building static websites quickly. Popular with developers who want simple, fast sites without a CMS.

I

Instance

A virtual server. When you "spin up an instance" you're renting a virtual computer in a data center.

L

Lambda

AWS's serverless function product. You write a small piece of code, upload it, and AWS runs it on demand without you managing a server.

Linux

The operating system that most cloud servers run. Free and open source.

Load Balancer

Splits incoming traffic across multiple servers so no single one gets overwhelmed. Oracle includes one in their free tier.

Log Rotation

Automatically deleting old log files so they don't pile up and cost you storage money.

M

MVP (Minimum Viable Product)

The simplest version of an app that still works. Build the core thing first, add features later.

MySQL / PostgreSQL

Two popular free, open-source database types. Both are available on AWS RDS. PostgreSQL is also available free via Supabase.

N

NoSQL

A type of database that stores data more flexibly than traditional tables. DynamoDB is a NoSQL database.

O

OCI (Oracle Cloud Infrastructure)

Oracle's cloud platform. Home of the Always Free tier.

OCPUs

Oracle's name for their CPU units. Roughly equivalent to two vCPUs.

Ops / DevOps

The work of managing servers, deployments, and infrastructure. Serverless platforms exist largely to eliminate this work.

P

Pull

Downloading the latest version of code from GitHub to your local machine. The opposite of push.

Push

Uploading your code changes from your computer to GitHub. On sites connected to GitHub, a push automatically triggers a new deployment.

R

R2

Cloudflare's file storage product. Competes with AWS S3. Free tier included.

RAM

Memory. More RAM means your server can handle more things at once without slowing down.

RDS

Amazon's managed database service. Handles MySQL, PostgreSQL, and others. Available on 12-month free tier.

React / Vue / Gatsby

Popular JavaScript frameworks for building websites and web apps. All work with static hosting platforms like Cloudflare Pages.

Region

A physical location where a cloud provider has data centers. Choosing the wrong region can affect speed and cost.

Repo (Repository)

A folder of code stored on a service like GitHub. The source of truth for your project.

REST API

A standard way of building APIs that web apps use to send and receive data.

S

S3

Amazon's file storage product. Good for images, static files, and backups. On the 12-month free tier, not always-free.

Serverless

Running code without managing a server. You write the function, the cloud provider handles everything else. You only pay for actual usage.

SQLite

A lightweight database that stores everything in a single file. Easy to work with. What Cloudflare D1 is built on.

SSD

Solid state drive. Faster storage than traditional hard drives. Standard on most cloud instances.

Stack

The combination of technologies used to build a site or app. A "free stack" means all the pieces cost nothing.

Static Site

A website made of fixed files — no server-side processing. Fast, cheap to host, and easy to deploy.

Supabase

A service that gives you a free PostgreSQL database with a simple interface. Popular with developers who don't want to manage a database themselves.

T

TypeScript

A version of JavaScript with stricter rules that catches errors earlier. Increasingly popular for cloud functions.

V

VCN (Virtual Cloud Network)

Oracle's term for a private network within their cloud. Keeps your servers isolated and secure.

VPS (Virtual Private Server)

A virtual server you have full control over, as opposed to shared hosting where you're on the same machine as other people's sites.

W

Workers

Cloudflare's serverless function product. Runs JavaScript or TypeScript on Cloudflare's global network. 100,000 free requests per day.