SoFy Glossary

The below terms are stylized specifically in terms of capitalization, spelling, and formatting. Definition sources and credits are listed at the bottom of the page.

To jump ahead alphabetically, please use the below internal links.

^A ^C ^D ^F ^G ^H ^J ^K ^M ^N ^O ^P ^R ^S ^U ^V ^Y

Term	Definition
A
API	Application Programming Interface; a set of functions and procedures allowing the creation of applications that access the features or data of an operating system, application, or other service. ¹
API Directory	SoFy’s robust list of APIs available for customer use, indicating which product the API belongs to and the description of its function.
AWS	Amazon Web Services; Amazon’s on-demand cloud computing platform and offered API services.
Azure	Microsoft’s cloud computing service for building, deploying, and managing applications and servicess.
B
Business Solution	A catalog offering that demonstrates how product capabilities solve real-world business problems. It integrates one or more HCL Software products with configuration and data.
C
CLI	Command Line Interface; a text-based user interface that processes commands to a computer program in the form of lines of text and command codes.
cloud computing	Aka “the cloud” or servers that are accessed over the Internet, and the software and databases that run on those servers.²
cloud native	Technologies that empower organizations to build and run scalable applications in modern, dynamic environments such as public, private, and hybrid clouds. Containers, service meshes, microservices, immutable infrastructure, and declarative APIs are examples of cloud native software. ³
cloud-ready	An application, software, or service designed to run on a cloud computing framework via the Internet.
containers	A unit of software that bundles software code and enables applications to run rapidly and reliably from one computing environment to another.
D
Demos	SoFy Demos provide ways to explore Product capabilities, with scenarios you can try out right within the product itself.
Demo Packs	SoFy’s Demo Packs contain demo assets like data, configuration, and applications, that can be installed with a Product to provide a richer demo experience. Note: Demo Packs automatically bundle the dependent products.
DevOps	A methodology in which teams own an entire process from development to operations.⁴
Docker	An open platform for developing, shipping, and running applications; provides the ability to package and run an application in a loosely isolated environment called a container.⁵
E
Emissary	SoFy’s ingress controller for each solution, managing traffic from outside a Kubernetes cluster to services inside the cluster. ⁶
F
FlexNet	Flexera’s licensed optimization solution that manages your IT software through a normalized inventory of enriched data; SoFy has integration capabilities with FlexNet.⁷
G
GCP	Google Cloud Platform; Google’s cloud computing suite that runs on the same infrastructure as Google does internally.
Grafana	An open source visualization and analytics software that allows you to query, visualize, alert on, and explore your metrics no matter where they are stored; SoFy has integration capabilities with Grafana.⁸
H
HCL Now	Our managed cloud service for HCL Software; SoFy’s in-house “cloud native-as-a-Service” offering.
HCL SoFy	Short for ‘Solution Factory’ – a platform that utilizes Helm technology to combine HCL Products and APIs as cloud-ready building blocks into portable, deployable solutions.
Helm chart	A Helm package that contains information sufficient for installing a set of Kubernetes resources into a Kubernetes cluster. ⁹
J
json	Stands for: JavaScript Object Notation; a minimalist readable data format primarily used to transmit data between an application and server.
K
Keycloak	An open source ‘Identity’ and ‘Access Management’ solution aimed at modern applications and services; SoFy has integration capabilities with Keycloak. ¹⁰
kubectl	The command-line tool that allows you to run commands against Kubernetes clusters, deploy applications, inspect and manage cluster resources, and view logs. ¹¹
Kubernetes	A portable, extensible, open source orchestration platform for managing containerized workloads and services, that facilitates both declarative configuration and automation. ¹²
N
node pools	A set of nodes within a Kubernetes cluster that share the same configuration (range, machine type, etc).
O
on-prem	Aka on-premises software; software that is housed on a physical location and operates on a local server and computing infrastructure, opposed to being hosted on the cloud or via a remote facility.
open source	Applications, software, or services that are publicly accessible, thus able to be utilized, modified, or shared by anyone.
P
preview content	Solutions built with preview content from the SoFy Catalog can be built and deployed in SoFy sandbox; however they can't be downloaded.
Products	SoFy’s cloud native, complete HCL Software product offerings, in a Kubernetes-ready format.
Prometheus	An open source systems monitoring and alerting toolkit that includes built-in and active scraping, storing, querying, graphing, and alerting based on time series data; SoFy has integration capabilities with Prometheus.¹³
R
Release Notes	SoFy’s bi-weekly product update notation, providing users with useful details on software improvements, bug fixes, and feature rollouts.
REST API	Representational State Transfer (REST) Application Programming Interface (API); enables two computer systems to communicate over HTTP in a similar way to web servers or browsers.
S
SoFy Blog	SoFy's technical blog, including a range of informational topics presented in various, digestible formats - made for a range of audiences, from the SoFy user to the general cloud native developer audience.
SoFy Catalog	SoFy’s robust list of pre-built cloud native solutions that users can explore and test in our Sandbox environment.
SoFy Common Services	SoFy’s pre-integrated services; e.g. - integrations with FlexNet, Grafana, Keycloak, or Prometheus; use of Access Control Service (ACS), optional Monitoring Dashboard.
SoFy FAQ	SoFy's list of most frequently asked questions.
SoFy Console	SoFy’s included dashboard to monitor health, logs, pods, etc. of your solution.
SoFy Glossary	This list! SoFy’s evergreen list of terms and definitions helpful for SoFy customers and general cloud native audiences.
SoFy Guide	SoFy’s instructional resources for more information on specific and technical SoFy topics; SoFy Guides are written in a formal and directional format with specific topics and instructions.
SoFy Sandbox	SoFy’s in-house deployment testing environment – test out, modify, build and rebuild your solution for hours or weeks at a time.
SoFy Solution	A pre-built, cloud native product offering selected from the SoFy Catalog packaged into a unique Helm chart solution, ready for deployment into any cloud environment.
SSL certificate	A digital certificate that authenticates a website’s identity and enables an encrypted connection to the site.
SQL	Standard Query Language; SQL is the most common language for extracting and organizing data stored in a relational database.
Swagger UI	Swagger is an Interface Description Language for describing RESTful APIs expressed using json.
U
UI/UX	User Interface/User Experience – both terms focus on the design of a user interface for machines and software with a focus on amplifying usability.
V
virtual machine	A software-based computer that exists within another computer’s operating system, often used for the purposes of testing, backing up data, or running SaaS applications.
Y
yaml	YAML Ain’t Markup Language; a digestible data serialization language commonly used in applications and files where data is stored or transmitted.