ch 15 vocab

Question 1

marginal costs

Answer 1

the costs associated with each additional unit produced

Question 2

open source software (oss):

Answer 2

software that is free and where anyone can look at and potentially modify the code

Question 3

cloud computing

Answer 3

replacing computing resources - either an organization’s or individual’s hardware or software - with services provided over the internet

Question 4

software as a service (saas)

Answer 4

a form of cloud computing where a firm subscribes to a third-party software and receives a service that is delivered online

Question 5

virtualization

Answer 5

a type of software that allows a single computer (or a cluster of connected computers) to function as if it were several different computers, each running its own operating system and software; underpins most cloud computing efforts, and can make computing more efficient, cost-effective, and scalable

Question 6

linux

Answer 6

an open source software operating system

Question 7

n00b

Answer 7

written with two zeroes, pronounced “newb”; greek-slang (leet speak), derogatory term for an uninformed or unskilled person

Question 8

lamp

Answer 8

an acronym standing for linux, the apache web server software, the mysql database, and any of several programming languages that start with p (ex: perl, python, or php)

Question 9

security-focused

Answer 9

aka “hardened,” term used to describe technology products that contain particularly strong security features

Question 10

scalability

Answer 10

ability to either handle increasing workloads or to be easily expanded to manage workload increases. in a software context, systems that aren’t scalable often require significant rewrites or the purchase or development of entirely new systems

Question 11

total cost of ownership

Answer 11

an economic measure of the full cost of owning a product (typically computing hardware and/or software); includes direct costs such as purchase price, plus indirect costs such as training, support, and maintenance

Question 12

utility computing

Answer 12

a form of cloud computing where a firm develops its own software, and then runs it over the internet on a service provider’s computers

Question 13

service level agreement (sla)

Answer 13

a negotiated agreement between the customer and the vendor; may specify levels of availability, serviceability, performance, operation, or other commitment requirements

Question 14

vertical niches

Answer 14

sometimes referred to as vertical markets; products and services designed to target a specific industry (ex: pharmaceutical, legal, apparel retail)

Question 15

platform as a service (paas)

Answer 15

where cloud providers offer services that include the hardware, operating system, development tools, testing, and hosting (the platform) that its customers use to build their own applications on the provider’s infrastructure. in this scenario, the cloud firm usually manages the platform (hosting, hardware, and supporting software), while the client has control over the creation and deployment of its application

Question 16

infrastructure as a service (iaas)

Answer 16

where cloud providers offer services that include running the remote hardware, storage, and networking (the infrastructure), but client firms can choose software used (which may include operating systems, programming languages, databases, and other software packages). in this scenario, the cloud firm usually manages the infrastructure (keeping the hardware and networking running), while the client has control over most other things (operating systems, storage, deployed applications, and perhaps even security and networking features like firewalls and security systems)

Question 17

cloudbursting

Answer 17

describes the use of cloud computing to provide excess capacity during periods of spiking demand; is a scalability solution that is usually provided as an overflow service, kicking in as needed

Question 18

black swans

Answer 18

unpredicted, but highly impactful events. scalable computing resources can help a firm deal with spiking impact from black swan events. the phrase entered the managerial lexicon from the 2007 book of the same name by nassim taleb

Question 19

server farm

Answer 19

a massive network of computer servers running software to coordinate their collective use; provide the infrastructure backbone to saas and hardware cloud efforts, as well as many large-scale internet services

Question 20

containers

Answer 20

a type of virtualization that allows for shared operating systems for more resource savings and faster execution. however, they still isolate applications so they execute and move to different computing hardware, just like conventional virtualization

Question 21

virtual desktops

Answer 21

when a firm runs an instance of a pc’s software on another machine and simply delivers the image of what’s executing to the remote device. using virtualization, a single server can run dozens of pcs, simplifying backup, upgrade, security, and administration