Glossary
Data, cloud and POPIA glossary
Plain-English definitions of the terms we use most, from backup and disaster recovery to cloud costs, data platforms, AI and POPIA.
- 3-2-1-1-0 rule
- Three copies of your data, on two types of storage, one offsite, one offline or immutable, and zero errors when restores are tested.
- Related service: Backup & Disaster Recovery
- AI agent
- An AI system that can plan and carry out actions, such as updating records or sending messages, rather than only answering questions.
- Related service: AI & Machine Learning
- Backup
- A copy of data kept separately, so it can be restored if the original is lost, damaged or encrypted.
- Related service: Backup & Disaster Recovery
- Data lakehouse
- A data platform that combines the low-cost raw storage of a data lake with the structure and speed of a data warehouse.
- Related service: Data Engineering & Platforms
- Data pipeline
- An automated process that moves data from source systems into a central platform, cleaning and shaping it along the way.
- Related service: Data Engineering & Platforms
- Disaster recovery (DR)
- The plan, systems and tested steps that get an organisation running again after a major incident, within agreed time limits.
- Related service: Backup & Disaster Recovery
- DRaaS
- Disaster-Recovery-as-a-Service. A provider replicates your systems to its infrastructure and helps you switch over to them during an incident.
- Related service: Backup & Disaster Recovery
- FinOps
- A way of managing cloud costs in which finance, IT and business teams share responsibility for cloud spending and review it regularly.
- Related service: Cloud Services & Migration
- Immutable backup
- A backup copy that can't be changed or deleted for a set period, even by an administrator.
- Related service: Backup & Disaster Recovery
- Information Officer
- The person responsible for POPIA and PAIA compliance in an organisation. By default this is the head of the organisation, and they must be registered with the Information Regulator.
- Related service: Data Governance & POPIA
- Microsoft Fabric
- Microsoft's data platform that brings storage (OneLake), data integration, data engineering, warehousing, real-time analytics and Power BI together on shared capacity.
- Related service: Analytics & Business Intelligence
- POPIA
- The Protection of Personal Information Act, South Africa's main data protection law, enforced by the Information Regulator.
- Related service: Data Governance & POPIA
- RAG (retrieval-augmented generation)
- An AI technique in which a model answers questions using information retrieved from your own documents.
- Related service: AI & Machine Learning
- RPO (recovery point objective)
- The maximum amount of data, measured in time, that an organisation can afford to lose in an incident.
- Related service: Backup & Disaster Recovery
- RTO (recovery time objective)
- The maximum time a system can be down before it must be running again.
- Related service: Backup & Disaster Recovery
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