SaaS
Software as a Service; a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and hosted centrally.
PaaS
Platform as a Service; a cloud computing model providing customers a platform on which to develop, run, and manage applications without infrastructure complexity.
IaaS
Infrastructure as a Service; cloud-based services offering high-level APIs used to dereference various low-level network details like physical computing resources.
API
Application Programming Interface; a set of rules and protocols for building and integrating application software, allowing systems to communicate.
RESTful API
An Application Programming Interface that conforms to the constraints of REST architectural style and allows for interaction with RESTful web services.
SDK
Software Development Kit; a collection of software development tools in one installable package that facilitates the creation of applications.
POC
Proof of Concept; a realization of a certain method or idea in order to demonstrate its feasibility and practical potential for a prospect.
POV
Proof of Value; a targeted trial designed to demonstrate measurable business value and ROI to a client rather than just technical functionality.
RFP
Request for Proposal; a document that solicits proposals by an agency or company interested in procurement of a commodity or service.
RFI
Request for Information; a standard business process whose purpose is to collect written information about the capabilities of various vendors.
RFQ
Request for Quotation; a standard business process used when an organization wants to invite suppliers into a bidding process for specific products or services.
SLAs
Service Level Agreements; commitments between a service provider and a client that outline metrics like uptime, responsiveness, and responsibilities.
Latency
The delay before a transfer of data begins following an instruction for its transfer, usually measured in milliseconds.
Throughput
The amount of material, data, or work that a system can process in a given amount of time.
Scalability
The capability of a system, network, or process to handle a growing amount of work, or its potential to be enlarged to accommodate that growth.
High Availability
A characteristic of a system which aims to ensure an agreed level of operational performance, usually uptime, for a higher than normal period.
Fault Tolerance
The ability of a system to continue operating properly in the event of the failure of one or more of its components.
Redundancy
The inclusion of extra components which are not strictly necessary to functioning, in case of failure in other components.
Microservices
An architectural style that structures an application as a collection of small, autonomous services modeled around a business domain.
Monolith
A software architecture in which all components of an application are unified into a single, tightly coupled program.
Containerization
A form of operating system virtualization through which applications are run in isolated user spaces called containers.
Kubernetes
An open-source container orchestration system for automating software deployment, scaling, and management.
CI/CD
Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment; automated practices for frequently delivering apps to customers by introducing automation into the stages of app development.
DevOps
A set of practices that combines software development and IT operations to shorten the systems development life cycle and provide high software quality.
Telemetry
The automatic measurement and wireless transmission of data from remote sources to monitor performance, usage, and system health.
Observability
The measure of how well internal states of a system can be inferred from knowledge of its external outputs.
Middleware
Software that provides common services and capabilities to applications outside of what's offered by the operating system.
SDK Integration
The process of embedding a software development kit into an application to enable specific functionalities or connect to external services.
Data Pipeline
A series of data processing steps where output of one element is the input of the next, used for aggregating, transforming, and transferring data.
Data Lake
A centralized repository that allows you to store all your structured and unstructured data at any scale.
Data Warehouse
A enterprise system used for the analysis and reporting of structured and semi-structured data from multiple sources.
ETL
Extract, Transform, Load; a three-phase procedure in database usage and data warehousing to integrate data from diverse sources.
Zero Trust Security
An IT security model that requires strict identity verification for every person and device trying to access resources on a network.
SSO
Single Sign-On; an authentication scheme that allows a user to log in with a single ID to any of several related software systems.
MFA
Multi-Factor Authentication; an electronic authentication method in which a user is granted access to a website or application only after presenting two or more pieces of evidence.
RBAC
Role-Based Access Control; an approach to restricting system access to authorized users based on their roles within an organization.
Encryption at Rest
The protection of stored data from unauthorized access or theft by converting it into unreadable code.
Encryption in Transit
The protection of data while it is being actively transferred between two systems across a network.
Compliance
Conformity to established laws, standards, regulations, and security protocols such as GDPR, HIPAA, or SOC 2.
SOC 2
A compliance standard for service organizations that defines criteria for managing customer data based on security, availability, and privacy.
Lead Qualification
The process of determining whether a prospective buyer has the need, budget, and authority to purchase a product.
BANT
Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline; a traditional framework used by sales teams to determine whether a prospect is a good fit.
MEDDPICC
A detailed B2B sales methodology focusing on Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Paper Process, Identify Pain, Champion, and Competition.
Discovery Call
The initial conversation with a potential client to uncover their pain points, technical needs, and business objectives.
Technical Discovery
A deep dive into a prospect's existing IT infrastructure, pain points, technical requirements, and system dependencies.
Executive Sponsor
A senior leader in a client organization who advocates for a project and champions its business value to decision-makers.
Champion
An internal stakeholder at a target client account who strongly supports your product and sells on your behalf internally.
Value Proposition
A clear statement that summarizes why a customer should buy a product or service, highlighting its unique benefits over competitors.
Total Cost of Ownership
TCO; an estimate of all direct and indirect costs associated with purchasing, deploying, and operating a technology system over time.
ROI
Return on Investment; a performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency or profitability of an investment.
Churn Rate
The percentage of subscribers or customers who stop using a service or paying for a product over a given time frame.
ARR
Annual Recurring Revenue; a key financial metric used by SaaS businesses to quantify the predictable and recurring revenue generated by customers annually.
MRR
Monthly Recurring Revenue; the predictable revenue that a business can expect to receive every single month.
CAC
Customer Acquisition Cost; the total expense incurred by a business to acquire a new customer, including marketing and sales expenses.
LTV
Lifetime Value; an estimate of the total revenue a business can reasonably expect from a single customer account throughout the business relationship.
Upselling
A sales technique used to persuade a customer to purchase a higher-end product, an upgrade, or an additional feature.
Cross-selling
The practice of selling an additional, complementary product or service to an existing customer.
Edge Computing
A distributed computing paradigm that brings computation and data storage closer to the sources of data to improve response times and save bandwidth.
Technical Debt
The implied cost of additional rework caused by choosing an easy or fast solution now instead of using a better approach that would take longer.
End-of-Life
EOL; a phrase used with respect to a product supplied to customers, indicating that the product is at the end of its useful life and support will be discontinued.