Webmaster dictionary

The Webmaster Dictionary: A list of terms, acronyms, and companies that most webmasters should, or want to, know about. Covers Apache to WordPress.

Amazon S3 - Amazon Simple Storage Service. Object storage built to store and retrieve any amount of data from anywhere
Apache - The Apache web server software
AWS - Amazon Web Services.

Bandwidth - For shared hosting: typically refers to the total amount of transfer allowed per month.

Cloud - Marketing jargon. For most companies, this means something slightly different than every other company.
Cloud Hosting - Typically refers to virtualized, scalable, and fault tolerant hosting... but not always.
CloudFlare - A company specializing in enhancing website performance, security, and reliability. Offers DNS, CDN, WAF, DDoS Protection, and much more.
cPanel - A commonly provided control panel for linux hosts offering PHP and some other languages. Includes tools for Mail accounts, databases,
CPU - In hosting: typically refers to the amount of CPU resources allocated to your account or virtual server. Actual performance varies based on many factors, so one company offering 1 core of CPU may actually be more than another company offering two.
CSR - Certificate Signing Request. Generated using an SSL key and used to request an actual SSL certificate from a certificate authority.

DB - Database. Typically MySQL or PostgreSQL.
DDoS - Distributed denial of service attack. Many computers are used to overwhelm the resources of a target system, typically to disrupt or take a website offline.
Dedicated Server - Leased server hardware dedicated soley to your account. May be managed or unmanaged.
Digital Ocean^[1] - A cloud computing company offering a range of VPS and related services.
Disk space - Typically refers to the amount of disk space allocated to your account or server. Bad things can happen when your disk is 100% used.
DNS - Domain name system. Think of it like a phone book for the internet. Converts the domain name you type into the IP address your computer should connect too.
Droplet - Marketing term used by Digital Ocean to describe their VPS.
Dynamic page - Unlike static pages, which do not change after being uploaded to the web server, dynamic pages make use of backend languages and databases to construct a response to be sent to the client instead of sending their own source code. Examples include WordPress and most PHP scripts.

This page is a work in progrss. More terms and definitions coming soon.

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