Nomenclature Reference

Various projects and organizations who work with cloud computing use different words to refer to the same thing. This cross-reference shows the words used by Exosphere. In most cases, Exosphere has adopted the OpenStack term, except where a clearer/better term exists for the target audience (researchers and other non-IT professionals).

Note for users: an organization can offer a customized version of Exosphere with localized nomenclature (see localization section of README.md), so if you are using Exosphere somewhere other than try.exosphere.app, that interface may use different words. Ask your administrator for details.

Note for developers: some code in the Exosphere codebase (e.g. variable and function names) may use OpenStack terms instead of the "Exosphere new default term" listed below. Please see issue 506 for ongoing work to resolve this.

Description	Exosphere new default term	OpenStack term(s)	Jetstream term	Amazon Web Services term
OpenStack deployment including its own Keystone	cloud	cloud, cluster	cloud	N/A
OpenStack that shares its Keystone with others	region	region	region	availability zone/region
unit of tenancy	project	project, (tenant)	allocation	account
maximum amount of resources your project can use	resource limits	quota, limits	quota	AWS Service Quotas
PKI public key used for SSH auth	SSH public key	keypair	SSH public key	key pair
virtual computer	instance?	server, (instance)	instance	instance
hardware configuration of a virtual computer	size	size, flavor	flavor	instance type and size
console for troubleshooting a broken instance	console	console	console	EC2 console
buffer passed to cloud-init on first boot	boot script	user data	boot script	user data
static representation of hard drive contents	image	image	image	Amazon Machine Image (AMI)
storage block device	volume	volume	volume	volume
shared file system (the OpenStack Manila project)	share	share	manila share	Amazon Elastic File System
shared file system access rule	access rule	share access rule	share rule	file system policy
shared file system export location	export location	export location	export location	mount target
non-floating IP address	internal IP address	fixed IP address	internal IP address	private IPv4 address
floating IP address	public IP address	floating IP address	public IP address	Elastic IP Address
set of networking access rules for instances	security group	security group	security group	security group
text-based user interface served in a web browser	terminal	N/A	web shell	N/A
graphical desktop interface served in a web browser	graphical environment	N/A	web desktop	N/A
DNS hostname	hostname	N/A	hostname	N/A