a
Agility
Anti-virus
Asset
Management
The ability to migrate and integrate changes to technology systems efficiently. Quick adaptation keeps infrastructure performing as the business changes.
A program that protects devices from cyber viruses and removes any already present on the system.
Tracking a business’s technology investments across their lifecycle so every vendor and purchase delivers its full value.
b
Backup
Backup &
Disaster Recovery
Breach
BYOD
Creating copies of data that can be recovered if information is deleted or lost. Done infrequently or incorrectly, it exposes the business to lasting damage and downtime.
Policies and procedures for retrieving data lost to deletion or corruption, with the execution plan written before a critical event, not after.
The taking of information from a system without the consent, awareness, or authorization of its user.
Bring Your Own Device: a policy allowing staff to use personal phones, tablets, and laptops for business purposes.
c
Cloud Storage
Cluster
Collaboration
Ensuring the business and its employees operate in accordance with the laws, regulations, standards, and ethical practices relevant to the organization.
Information changed from its original form and rendered broken, unreadable, or inaccessible — usually when data loses its base integrity.
CPU
CRM
A model where data is stored, managed, and backed up remotely by a cloud provider while staying available to users over a network.
A group of servers and devices acting as a single system to enable high availability, and in some cases load balancing and parallel processing.
Software delivered across network structures to give a consistent experience on any device while storing data off-premises.
Compliance
Corrupt Data
Central Processing Unit: the main component that processes all instructions, runs the operating system, and produces output from user or software input.
Customer Relationship Management: systems that track engagements and organize customer information to improve how you do business with them.
D
DaaS
A system that stops users from moving sensitive information outside the corporate network,
with administrators controlling what end users can transfer.
DNS
A Department of Defense standard for destroying data on a drive by overwriting it seven times, after which the data is considered unrecoverable.
Domain
Domain Controller
Downtime
DRaaS
Desktop as a Service: virtual computing that turns any device into your work computer,
with applications controlled securely through the cloud.
Data Loss Prevention
Domain Name System: maintains a directory of domain names and translates them into IP addresses.
DoD Wipe
A group of resources accessed and administered under one set of rules. Devices sharing a common element of the IP address sit in the same domain.
A server that verifies user authentication and authorization and manages the user database for a domain.
A period when a system or service is inactive — from failure, maintenance, or an unplanned event — with direct impact on productivity.
Disaster Recovery as a Service: total system backup that keeps operations running while the primary system is repaired after a natural or human-induced failure.
e
Encoding data so it becomes incomprehensible without a decryption key. The most efficient method available for protecting information.
EUC Admin
EUC EXPERT
Exchange
Encryption
An End User Computing administrator handling the day-to-day of the end-user estate — account provisioning, device enrollment, software installs, patch cycles, and the tickets that come with them.
An End User Computing specialist — the engineer responsible for the devices, desktops, and applications staff touch every day, from laptop imaging and VDI to software deployment and the support that keeps people working.
Microsoft’s mail and calendaring server, run on-premises or through Microsoft 365, handling business email, shared calendars, and contacts.
F
Firewall
A network security system that monitors and regulates incoming and outgoing traffic to prevent unauthorized access to or from a private network.
G
GDPR
The General Data Protection Regulation: EU reform giving individuals control over their personal data. Businesses handling that data must apply safeguards and the highest privacy settings by default, or face penalties.
H
Hardware as a Service: equipment owned by a managed service provider is placed, monitored, and fully supported at the customer’s site.
A system built to operate continuously without failure, with every part accessible and thoroughly tested before implementation.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act: sets the standards protecting patient data. Any company processing protected health information needs a compliant system.
A PC or server that connects with other devices over a network and provides resources and services such as files and printers.
Combining a private cloud with public cloud services so on-premises infrastructure can scale.
Often the most cost-effective route to the cloud.
Hypervisor
HaaS
High Availability
HIPAA
Host
Hybrid Cloud
Software that creates, runs, and manages virtual machines, letting one host support multiple guests by sharing resources independently of the host hardware.
I
IaaS
Infrastructure
ISP
Infrastructure as a Service: servers and data center equipment provided by an external provider and managed for you over the internet.
The physical and virtual resources that make up the network — servers, routers, switches, firewalls, and ISP connections.
Internet Service Provider: an organization providing internet access and related services, serving as the connection between your devices and every other host online.
L
LAN
Local Area Network: computers and devices in the same location, able to access and share resources with one another.
m
Malware
Mobile Device Management: security software letting administrators monitor, secure, and apply policy to staff laptops, phones, and tablets.
Migration
Malicious software that invades, damages, or disables systems — viruses, worms, Trojans, spyware — generally to steal, delete, or encrypt data.
MDM
Moving from one operating environment to another that is more current and efficient, usually by integrating newer hardware, software, or both.
o
Open DNS
A cloud-based set of products making connections faster and safer through URL, DNS, IP layer, proxy, and content filtering. Forwarders filter traffic in the cloud before it reaches your firewall.
p
PaaS
Patch
Private Branch Exchange: a private telephone network for internal and external calling over VoIP, ISDN, or analog, used to assign extensions and manage voicemail.
PCI Compliance
Power over Ethernet: lets a network cable carry electrical power, reducing the number of wires needed to install a network.
A cloud available only to a select user or group, offering more customization and control in a more protected environment.
Storage and access provided in widespread third-party data centers, usually reachable by the general public over the internet.
Platform as a Service: hardware and software tools for developing and launching applications, without building or maintaining the infrastructure yourself.
Software that repairs functionality issues, improves security, or adds features — often a temporary fix until the developer ships a full update.
PBX
Security standards enforced by the PCI Standards Council for any company that accepts, processes, stores, or transmits credit card information.
POE
Private Cloud
Public Cloud
q
Query
A request sent to a database for information, returned in a readable form such as SQL results or a graph.
R
Rack
A physical structure housing servers, drives, and other equipment in a small footprint, used in data centers and server rooms.
Ransomware
Malicious software that locks systems and encrypts files until a sum of money is paid, usually arriving by email attachment, download, or malicious link.
S
SaaS
Software-as-a-Service: applications delivered over the internet on subscription, accessed in a browser with no local installation or hardware investment.
Scalability
A system’s ability to handle increased workload or expand for growth without losing performance which is critical for any business anticipating expansion.
Secure Socket
Layer (SSL)
A standard protocol establishing encrypted links between a web server and a browser, protecting transactions and login credentials. Indicated by the padlock icon and “https”.
Server
A computer that provides functionality for client devices — hosting sites, managing email, running applications — handling many requests at once.
Service Delivery
Engineer
The engineer executing against the service agreement — resolving incidents, running scheduled maintenance, and implementing changes at the standard the contract sets.
Ownership of the client relationship and the service itself: tracking performance against the SLA, coordinating engineering resources, and running the reviews that keep delivery accountable.
Service Level
Agreement (SLA)
Service Delivery
Management
A contract defining service levels, performance metrics, and responsibilities — uptime percentages, response times, support availability — so expectations are measurable.
SIEM
Security Information and Event Management: collects and correlates security events from multiple sources in real time for proactive detection, response, and compliance reporting.
Software Defined
Networking (SDN)
Architecture that separates network control from the data plane, letting administrators manage services through software for faster, more flexible configuration.
Software Development
Kit (SDK)
A set of tools, libraries, documentation, and APIs developers use to build applications for a
specific platform.
Solid State
Drive (SSD)
Storage using flash memory with no moving parts, offering faster read and write speeds, lower latency, and better durability than a traditional hard drive.
Unsolicited bulk messages, usually promotional but sometimes malicious, that consume network resources and carry phishing or malware risk.
Spam
Malicious software that installs without informed consent and transmits personal information and browsing habits to third parties.
Spyware
A high-speed network providing block-level access to consolidated storage, which appears to servers as locally attached drives.
Storage Area
Network (SAN)
Subnet
A segmented piece of a larger network, created by dividing an IP network into smaller sections to improve performance and isolate groups of hosts.
A device connecting devices within a network, forwarding data by MAC address and reducing congestion by separating collision domains.
Switch
The IT professional managing an organization’s systems and networks — configuration, monitoring, security, and troubleshooting.
System Administrator
t
TCP/IP
TensorFlow
Terabyte (TB)
Terminal Services
Thin Client
Threat Modeling
The rate at which data transfers successfully between two points, typically in bits per second — a direct measure of network performance.
Transmitting multiple signals over one path by assigning each its own time slot, maximizing use of available bandwidth in telecom and networking systems.
Tokenization
The arrangement of links and nodes in a network — bus, star, ring, mesh, or tree — which determines how data flows between them.
The cryptographic protocol securing web browsing, email, and VoIP. Successor to SSL, addressing vulnerabilities in earlier versions.
Malware disguised as legitimate software that, once run, can steal data, install more malware, or open
a backdoor for remote access.
Trusted Platform
Module (TPM)
Tunneling
Encapsulating one network protocol inside another so data can travel securely over an incompatible or restricted network — the basis of most VPNs.
Requiring two distinct forms of identification before access is granted, adding protection even when a password is compromised.
The foundational protocol suite of the internet. TCP manages reliable segmentation and retransmission; IP handles addressing and routing.
An open-source machine learning framework from Google, widely used to build and deploy machine learning and deep learning applications.
A unit of storage equal to 1,024 gigabytes, the standard measure for large drives and storage systems.
Now Remote Desktop Services: lets multiple users access applications and data on a remote server, centralizing management and supporting remote work.
A lightweight device that relies on a server for processing and storage, serving mainly as an interface. Cost-effective and easier to secure centrally.
A structured approach to identifying and prioritizing the security risks in a system so mitigation is designed in rather than bolted on.
Throughput
Time Division
Multiplexing (TDM)
Substituting sensitive data with non-sensitive tokens that carry no exploitable value, reducing breach risk while the real data is stored separately.
Topology
Transport Layer
Security (TLS)
Trojan Horse
A microcontroller that secures hardware by generating and storing cryptographic keys, used for device authentication and disk encryption.
Two-Factor
Authentication (2FA)
u
Ubuntu
A free, open-source Linux distribution based on Debian, with desktop, server, and cloud versions and strong community support.
UEFI
Unified Extensible Firmware Interface: the modern firmware that initializes hardware and boots the operating system, replacing the legacy BIOS with faster startup, larger drive support, and Secure Boot.
Unicode
A universal character encoding standard assigning a unique value to every character, enabling consistent text across platforms and languages.
Unified
Communications (UC)
Integrating messaging, voice, video conferencing, email, and collaboration tools into one system to simplify communication across devices.
A single platform combining firewall, intrusion prevention, antivirus, anti-spam, content filtering, and VPN under one point of control.
Unified Threat
Management (UTM)
Uninterruptible
Power Supply (UPS)
A device supplying emergency battery power when the main source fails, protecting equipment and data from sudden interruption.
Universal Plug
and Play (UPnP)
Protocols letting devices discover each other and self-configure on a network. Convenient, but a security risk if left unmanaged.
The standard interface connecting peripherals to a host, carrying both data and power, now through USB-C and successive speed generations.
Universal Serial
Bus (USB)
The time a system has run continuously without interruption — the reliability metric usually
stipulated in an SLA.
Uptime
Charging based on actual consumption rather than a flat rate, common for cloud resources, data transfer, and bandwidth.
Usage-Based Billing
The final testing phase where real users confirm the software handles required tasks in real-world scenarios before deployment.
User Acceptance
Testing (UAT)
User Account
Control (UAC)
A Windows component prompting for permission before actions that could affect the operating system, limiting what applications can change silently.
A connectionless protocol for time-sensitive transmissions like video playback and DNS lookups — faster than TCP, with no delivery guarantee.
User Datagram
Protocol (UDP)
Every aspect of a user’s interaction with a product or service, focused on usability, accessibility,
and satisfaction.
User Experience (UX)
The point of interaction with a device or application — screens, menus, buttons, and layout — designed to maximize usability.
User Interface (UI)
V
Images defined by mathematical formulas rather than pixels, so they scale to any size without
losing quality.
Version Control
System (VCS)
Desktop operating systems hosted on central servers and accessed from any endpoint, keeping data in the data center and simplifying updates.
A logical grouping of devices that communicate as though on the same physical LAN, segmenting traffic to improve performance and isolate sensitive data.
An emulated computer running its own operating system in isolation on a host, letting several coexist on one physical machine.
Also called a hypervisor: allocates CPU, memory, and storage to each virtual machine and keeps them isolated. Type 1 runs on bare metal; Type 2 runs on a host OS.
An encrypted tunnel between a device and a VPN server that protects data crossing public networks and masks the user’s IP address.
A simulated, immersive environment delivered through a headset that tracks movement to adjust perspective in real time.
Virtualization
Malware that attaches to legitimate programs or files and replicates to other systems, corrupting data or compromising security.
A Microsoft programming language and IDE for building Windows applications with a graphical interface and drag-and-drop development.
A leading provider of virtualization and cloud software, covering servers, networks, storage,
and desktops.
Voice communication carried over IP networks, converting analog signals into data packets for calls from computers, phones, or VoIP handsets.
Memory requiring power to retain data — chiefly RAM — offering the high-speed access the CPU needs for active work.
A systematic scan of networks, systems, and applications to identify and prioritize security weaknesses before an attacker finds them.
Vector Graphics
Software tracking changes to source code over time, letting multiple developers work the same codebase and roll back when needed.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
Virtual Local Area
Network (VLAN)
Virtual Machine (VM)
Virtual Machine
Monitor (VMM)
Virtual Private
Network (VPN)
Virtual Reality (VR)
Abstracting hardware so multiple operating systems and applications run on one physical system, improving utilization and simplifying management.
Virus
Visual Basic
VMware
Voice over Internet
Protocol (VoIP)
Volatile Memory
Vulnerability
Assessment
w
WAN Optimization
Wearable Technology
A firewall that monitors and blocks malicious HTTP/S traffic to a web application, defending against SQL injection, XSS, and similar exploits.
Software that retrieves and renders web content by interpreting HTML, CSS, and JavaScript — the primary interface to the web.
A bot that systematically browses and indexes web pages, following links so search engines can deliver relevant results.
A service providing server space and connectivity so a website is reachable on the web, from shared hosting through to dedicated and cloud.
A system that stores, processes, and delivers web pages to clients over HTTP or HTTPS — Apache, IIS, and Nginx being the common choices.
Standardized integration between web applications over open protocols like SOAP and REST, enabling data exchange across platforms and languages.
Wireless networking over radio waves under the IEEE 802.11 standards, letting devices connect to the internet without physical cabling.
A network spanning a large geographic area, connecting smaller networks across cities or countries — essential for multi-location businesses.
Microsoft’s operating system family for PCs, servers, and embedded devices, with wide hardware and software support.
Hardware that lets Wi-Fi devices join a wired network, extending wireless range and supporting roaming across coverage areas.
The sequence of processes work passes through from start to finish. Workflow management automates and standardizes those steps.
The global collection of interconnected documents accessed over HTTP, invented by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 and navigated by hyperlink.
Self-replicating malware that spreads without user interaction by exploiting vulnerabilities, often consuming bandwidth or carrying a payload.
Techniques like compression, deduplication, and traffic shaping that improve application performance across a wide area network.
Body-worn electronics with sensors and connectivity — smartwatches, fitness trackers, AR glasses — that exchange data with other devices.
Web Application
Firewall (WAF)
Web Browser
Web Crawler
Web Hosting
Web Server
Web Services
Wi-Fi
Wide Area
Network (WAN)
Windows Operating
System
Wireless Access
Point (WAP)
Workflow
World Wide Web (WWW)
Worm
x
The windowing system common on UNIX-like systems, providing the framework for graphical interfaces and network-transparent remote display.
X.509 Certificates
The instruction set family descended from the Intel 8086, the standard architecture for most PCs and servers in both 32-bit and 64-bit forms.
The umbrella term for delivering any service over the internet on subscription — beyond SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS to storage, network, and more.
An open-source platform for building iOS, Android, and Windows applications from a shared C# codebase with native performance.
Microsoft’s gaming brand, spanning consoles, the Xbox Network, and Xbox Cloud Gaming — a consumer showcase for graphics processing and cloud streaming at scale.
Apple’s integrated development environment for building software across macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and tvOS.
Intel’s processor brand for servers and workstations, built for reliability and scale with large caches and error-correcting memory support.
Extensible Markup Language: a flexible text format for structured, human- and machine-readable data, widely used in web services and configuration.
A way to describe and validate the structure of an XML document, defining its elements, attributes,
and data types.
Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol: an open standard for real-time messaging, presence, and IoT middleware.
A logical operation returning true only when inputs differ, used in arithmetic circuits, error correction, and encryption.
A query language for selecting nodes in an XML document by path and condition, used heavily in parsing and transformation.
A language for transforming XML into other XML, HTML, or text formats, separating content from presentation.
XSS
(Cross-Site Scripting)
X Window System
The standard format for public key certificates used in SSL/TLS, binding a public key to an entity and issued by a trusted Certificate Authority.
X86 Architecture
XaaS(Anything
as a Service)
Xamarin
Xbox
Xcode
Xeon
XML
XML Schema
Definition (XSD)
XMPP
XOR (Exclusive OR)
XPath
XSLT
A web vulnerability letting attackers inject malicious scripts into pages other users view, enabling session theft and redirection. Mitigated by input validation and content security policy.
y
The concern that systems storing years as two digits would read “00” as 1900. Global remediation kept disruption minimal and underscored the cost of poor date handling.
YACC
Yagi Antenna
A technology company that began as a web directory and search engine in 1994 and now provides mail, news, finance, and advertising services.
A human-readable data serialization language using indentation for hierarchy, standard in DevOps tooling like Ansible, Docker Compose, and Kubernetes.
A data modeling language for configuration and state data in NETCONF and RESTCONF, enabling interoperability between vendors in network automation.
Yet Another Resource Negotiator: the Hadoop cluster manager that separates resource scheduling from processing so multiple engines share one platform.
A color space separating luminance from chrominance, allowing more efficient video and image compression with little visible loss.
An open-source scaffolding tool that generates project files and boilerplate to standard, speeding up new web application setup.
A keyword that pauses a function and returns a value while preserving state, producing values one at a time for memory-efficient iteration.
Dynamic allocation and pricing of compute resources against real-time demand, balancing workloads and optimizing data center utilization.
Yottabyte (YB)
One septillion hertz. Theoretical rather than practical — computing and telecom frequencies are measured in kilohertz through terahertz.
The largest online video platform, and a working example of scalable cloud infrastructure: CDNs, transcoding, and recommendation systems at global volume.
Yellowdog Updater, Modified: the command-line package manager for RPM-based Linux, resolving dependencies when installing and updating software.
Y2K
(Year 2000 Problem)
Yet Another Compiler Compiler: a Unix tool that generates parsers from a formal grammar description, foundational in compiler construction.
A directional antenna with parallel elements that focuses radio waves one way, giving high gain for point-to-point links and long-distance reception.
Yahoo!
YAML
YANG
YARN
YCbCr
Yeoman
Yield
(in Programming)
Yield Management
(Cloud)
One septillion bytes — a scale used to conceptualize global data volumes rather than any storage you can currently buy.
Yottahertz (YHz)
YouTube
YUM
z
Z-buffering
Z-Index
An extended Unix shell with advanced scripting, better completion, and heavy customization. The default on modern macOS.
A low-power wireless protocol for home automation that uses mesh networking in the sub-1 GHz band to avoid Wi-Fi interference.
Technologies that build a usable IP network with no manual setup, letting devices discover each other without DHCP or DNS servers.
Zero Latency
A model that trusts nothing inside or outside the perimeter by default: strict identity verification, micro-segmentation, continuous monitoring, and minimum necessary access.
An attack using a vulnerability unknown to those responsible for patching it — developers have zero days to respond before it is used.
A software flaw unknown to the vendor, with no patch available, leaving systems exposed until it is discovered and fixed.
One sextillion bytes, or a billion terabytes — the unit used to describe global data generation across cloud and IoT.
An advanced file system and volume manager combining storage pools, snapshots, continuous integrity checking, and automatic repair.
A low-power mesh networking specification on IEEE 802.15.4, used for home automation, medical data collection, and industrial control.
A compression and archiving format that bundles files into one smaller archive with lossless compression, supported nearly universally.
A compromised machine controlled remotely without the owner’s knowledge, used to send spam, spread malware, or join a DDoS botnet.
A DNS data file mapping domain names to IP addresses through resource records such as A, MX, CNAME, and NS.
A 3D rendering technique tracking pixel depth to determine which objects are visible and which are hidden behind others.
The CSS property controlling the stacking order of overlapping positioned elements — essential for modals, dropdowns, and layered layouts.
Z-Shell (Zsh)
Z-Wave
Zero Configuration
Networking
The ideal of instantaneous transmission. Unattainable in practice, but low-latency design is critical for trading, VR, and real-time control.
Zero Trust Security
Zero-Day Exploit
Zero-Day
Vulnerability
Zettabyte (ZB)
ZFS
Zigbee
ZIP (File Format)
Zombie Computer
Zone File
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Let's put this
to work for you
Tell us a little about your organization and we'll follow up with a plan scoped to your size, industry, and current risk.