Access Control
Rules that determine who can log in to a server, site or dashboard, and what they're allowed to do once inside.
A
Active Server Pages (ASP)
A Microsoft scripting technology for generating dynamic pages on IIS servers, unrelated to the Linux/PHP stack most modern hosting runs on.
Add-on Domain
A second, fully independent domain hosted from the same account, with its own site and file structure.
AJAX
A browser technique for fetching or sending data in the background so a page can update without a full reload.
AlmaLinux
A free, RHEL-compatible Linux distribution commonly used as a stable base for production servers.
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Amazon's cloud computing platform, and one of the providers xCloud can provision servers on using your own account.
Analytics
Data collected about visitor behavior - traffic, page views, conversions - used to understand how a site performs.
Anonymous FTP
An FTP mode that lets anyone connect without credentials, normally disabled on production servers for security.
Apache
A widely used open-source web server that receives HTTP requests and serves site files or hands them off to PHP.
Apache Modules
Plug-in components that extend Apache's core functionality, such as mod_rewrite for URL rewriting or mod_ssl for HTTPS.
APC / OPcache
A PHP extension that caches compiled script bytecode in memory so pages don't need to be recompiled on every request.
API Documentation
Reference material describing an API's endpoints, parameters and responses - xCloud publishes its own for the xCloud Public API.
API Gateway
A layer that sits in front of backend services to route, authenticate and rate-limit API requests.
API Rate Limiting
Capping how many requests a client can make in a given time window, to protect a server or service from abuse or overload.
Application
Any software that runs on a server and does something for a user - a WordPress site, a Node.js app, a database tool.
Application Hosting
Running an app's code, database and dependencies on a server so it's reachable over the internet.
Application Layer
The top layer of the networking stack (OSI Layer 7), where protocols like HTTP, FTP and DNS operate.
Application Monitoring
Continuously tracking an app's uptime, errors and performance so issues are caught before users report them.
Application Programming Interface (API)
A defined way for one piece of software to request data or actions from another.
Asynchronous Loading
Loading page resources such as scripts and images without blocking the rest of the page from rendering.
AUP (Acceptable Use Policy)
The rules a hosting provider sets for what its infrastructure can and can't be used for.
Auto-scaling
Automatically adding or removing server capacity in response to load, rather than sizing for peak traffic permanently.
Automatic Updates
Core, plugin or OS updates that install themselves on a schedule instead of waiting for someone to click "update."
Autoresponder
An automatic reply sent to incoming email, commonly used for out-of-office notices.
AWStats
An open-source log analyzer that turns raw server access logs into traffic reports.
B
Back End
The server-side part of an application - the database, business logic and infrastructure a visitor never sees directly.
Backup
A stored copy of a site's files and database that can be restored if something breaks or gets deleted.
Bandwidth
The volume of data transferred between a server and its visitors over a given period.
Bandwidth Throttling
Deliberately capping data transfer speed, either to manage load or to enforce a plan's limits.
Bare Metal Server
A physical server dedicated to one customer, with no hypervisor or virtualization layer in between.
Bcrypt
A password-hashing algorithm designed to be slow on purpose, making brute-force attacks impractical.
Block Storage
Storage split into fixed-size blocks and attached to a server like a raw disk, used for databases and boot volumes.
Brotli
A compression algorithm, developed by Google, that typically shrinks text-based assets more than gzip.
Brute-force Attack
Repeatedly guessing passwords or keys until one works - the reason login rate-limiting and strong passwords matter.
C
Cache
Storing a ready-to-serve copy of content so future requests skip the expensive work of regenerating it.
CDN Caching
Serving cached copies of static assets from a content delivery network's edge locations instead of the origin server.
Cloud Backup
A backup stored on cloud infrastructure, off the original server, so a single point of failure can't take out both copies.
Cloud Computing
Renting compute, storage and networking on demand from a provider's infrastructure instead of owning physical hardware.
Cloud Hosting
Hosting a site or app on cloud infrastructure rather than a single fixed physical server.
Cloud Migration
Moving an existing site, app or server's workload onto cloud infrastructure.
Cloud Server
A virtual server provisioned from a cloud provider's pool of physical hardware.
Cloud Storage
Off-server, network-accessible storage such as an S3 or Google Cloud bucket, often used for backups and media.
CloudLinux
A Linux distribution built for shared and multi-tenant hosting, isolating each account's resource usage from its neighbors.
Clustering
Grouping multiple servers to work together as one system for redundancy or extra capacity.
CNAME (Canonical Name Record)
A DNS record that points one domain or subdomain to another domain name instead of an IP address.
Compliance Standards
Formal requirements, like SOC 2 or GDPR, that infrastructure and processes must meet for regulated industries.
Containerization
Packaging an app with its dependencies into a portable, isolated unit - a container - that runs consistently anywhere.
Content Delivery Network (CDN)
A network of geographically distributed servers that cache and serve content closer to each visitor.
Content Management System (CMS)
Software like WordPress that lets people publish and manage content without writing code for every page.
Content Security Policy (CSP)
An HTTP header that restricts which sources a browser is allowed to load scripts, styles or media from.
Control Panel
A dashboard for managing a server or site - files, domains, databases, SSL - without touching the command line.
Cookies
Small pieces of data a site stores in a visitor's browser to remember sessions, preferences or login state.
CPU (Central Processing Unit)
The processor that executes a server's instructions; CPU allocation is one of the main things a hosting plan sizes.
Cron Job
A scheduled task that runs automatically at set intervals, such as a nightly backup or a cache warm-up.
Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)
A browser security mechanism that controls whether a page can request resources from a different origin.
Cybersecurity
The practices and tools used to protect servers, sites and data from unauthorized access or attack.
D
Data Center
A physical facility that houses the servers, networking and cooling infrastructure cloud providers run on.
Data Encryption
Converting data into a coded form so it's unreadable without the correct key, both at rest and in transit.
Data Replication
Continuously copying data to a second location so a failure in one place doesn't mean losing it.
Database
Structured storage for an application's data - WordPress keeps posts, users and settings in a MySQL/MariaDB database.
DMARC
An email authentication policy that tells receiving mail servers what to do with messages that fail SPF or DKIM checks.
DNS (Domain Name System)
The system that translates human-readable domain names into the IP addresses servers actually use.
E
E-commerce
Buying and selling online; hosting for a store has to account for checkout traffic spikes and payment security.
Edge Computing
Processing data closer to where it's generated or requested, rather than always routing it back to a central server.
EFS (Elastic File System)
A managed, network-attached file storage service that multiple servers can mount at once.
Email Client
Software such as Outlook, Apple Mail or a webmail app, used to read and send email from a mailbox.
Email Filters
Rules that sort, block or forward incoming mail based on sender, subject or content.
Email Forwarding
Automatically redirecting mail sent to one address on to another, without hosting a full mailbox.
F
Failover
Automatically switching to a backup server or system when the primary one goes down.
File Storage
Storage organized as a familiar folder-and-file hierarchy, as opposed to raw block storage.
Firewall
A layer that filters incoming and outgoing network traffic against a set of security rules.
Front End
The part of an application a visitor sees and interacts with directly in the browser.
Function as a Service (FaaS)
Running individual functions on demand in a managed environment, without provisioning or managing a server.
G
Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
Google's cloud computing platform, and one of the providers xCloud can provision servers on.
Green Hosting
Hosting run on infrastructure powered by renewable energy, or offset to reduce its carbon footprint.
H
Hosting Provider
The company or platform that supplies the servers and infrastructure a site or app runs on.
HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS)
A header that tells browsers to only ever connect to a site over HTTPS, never plain HTTP.
Hybrid Cloud
An infrastructure setup that mixes on-premises servers with public cloud resources.
Hypervisor
Software that creates and manages virtual machines on top of physical hardware, letting one server host many.
I
Incident Response
The process a team follows to detect, contain and recover from a security or availability incident.
Infrastructure
The underlying servers, storage, networking and services an application depends on to run.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Renting raw compute, storage and networking from a provider and managing the OS and software yourself.
IP Address
The numeric address that identifies a server or device on a network.
IP Whitelisting
Restricting access to a server or service to a pre-approved list of IP addresses.
J
Jira
A project and issue-tracking tool teams use to plan and manage engineering work - common in hosting and ops teams, if unrelated to hosting itself.
K
Kubernetes
An open-source system for automating the deployment, scaling and management of containerized applications.
L
Laravel
A popular open-source PHP framework used to build web applications, with first-class support in xCloud.
Latency
The delay between a request being sent and a response being received.
Load Balancer
A component that distributes incoming traffic across multiple servers so no single one is overwhelmed.
Load Balancing
The practice of spreading traffic or workload evenly across available servers.
Load Testing
Simulating traffic against a site or app to see how it performs under stress before real users do.
M
Magento
An open-source e-commerce platform used to build online stores.
Malware Protection
Tools and practices that detect and block malicious software from compromising a server or site.
Managed Hosting
Hosting where the provider handles server setup, updates, security and maintenance, not just the raw infrastructure.
MariaDB
An open-source relational database, forked from MySQL, commonly used to run WordPress sites.
Memcached
An in-memory key-value store used to cache the results of expensive database queries.
MX Record
A DNS record that specifies which mail servers are responsible for receiving email for a domain.
N
Network Attached Storage (NAS)
Dedicated file storage connected to a network that multiple servers can access.
Network Latency
The time it takes data to travel across a network from source to destination.
Network Protocols
Standardized rules, like HTTP, TCP/IP and FTP, that let systems communicate reliably.
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O
Object Storage
Storage that holds data as discrete objects with metadata, accessed over HTTP - used for backups, media and static assets.
On-Premises
Infrastructure that's physically owned and run in-house, rather than rented from a cloud provider.
Open Source
Software whose source code is publicly available to inspect, modify and redistribute.
P
Penetration Testing
A simulated attack against a system to find security weaknesses before a real attacker does.
PHP
The server-side scripting language WordPress and most of the web's content management systems are built on.
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
A managed environment where the provider handles the OS and runtime, and you just deploy code.
Q
Query Caching
Storing the results of a database query so a repeated identical query is served from memory instead of hitting the database again.
Queue Worker
A background process that picks up and processes jobs from a queue, keeping slow tasks off the main request/response cycle.
R
RAID
A way of combining multiple physical disks for redundancy, performance, or both.
RAM (Random Access Memory)
A server's working memory, used for anything actively being processed rather than sitting on disk.
Raw Logs
Unprocessed server access and error logs, before any analytics tool summarizes them.
Redis
An in-memory data store often used as an object cache or session store to speed up dynamic sites.
Root Access
Full administrative control over a server, able to install software and change any configuration.
S
Scalability
A system's ability to handle more load by adding resources, without a redesign.
Server
A computer, physical or virtual, that runs software and responds to requests from clients over a network.
Server Location
The physical region a server is provisioned in, which affects latency for visitors nearest to it.
Shared Hosting
Multiple accounts running on the same physical server and sharing its resources.
SSH (Secure Shell)
An encrypted protocol used to log into and run commands on a remote server.
SSL/TLS Certificate
A certificate that enables HTTPS, encrypting traffic between a browser and a server and verifying the site's identity.
Staging Environment
A copy of a live site used to test changes safely before pushing them to production.
T
TLD (Top-Level Domain)
The last segment of a domain name, such as .com, .host or .dev.
TLS (Transport Layer Security)
The modern cryptographic protocol that secures HTTPS connections - the successor to SSL.
Token Authentication
Verifying identity using a signed token instead of sending a username and password on every request.
U
Uptime
The percentage of time a server or site is available and responding.
URL Rewriting
Transforming a request's URL into a different internal path, used for clean, human-readable links.
User Authentication
Verifying that someone is who they claim to be before granting access.
V
Varnish
An HTTP accelerator that caches whole pages in front of a web server to serve them extremely fast.
Version Control
A system, like Git, for tracking changes to code over time and collaborating without overwriting each other's work.
Vertical Scaling
Increasing a single server's resources, like CPU or RAM, rather than adding more servers.
Virtual Private Server (VPS)
A virtual machine that behaves like a dedicated server but runs alongside others on shared physical hardware.
W
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
A firewall specifically tuned to filter malicious HTTP traffic aimed at web applications.
Web Hosting
Providing the server space and infrastructure needed to make a website accessible on the internet.
White Label
Reselling a service under your own brand instead of the original provider's.
WordPress
The open-source CMS that powers a large share of the web, and the platform xCloud is built to manage.
X
XML-RPC
An older WordPress remote-procedure protocol, largely superseded by the REST API but still a common attack target if left enabled.
Y
YAML
A human-readable data format commonly used for configuration files, such as a Docker Compose definition.
Z
Zero-Day Vulnerability
A security flaw that's exploited before the vendor has issued, or even knows to issue, a fix.