Cloud Glossary: Letter U

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U

UDP (User Datagram Protocol)

A connectionless protocol that provides fast data transmission without error correction or delivery guarantees.

Unicast

A one-to-one communication method where data is sent from one sender to one specific receiver.

Unified Threat Management (UTM)

A comprehensive security approach that combines multiple security functions into a single platform or appliance.

Unit Testing

A software testing method where individual components or modules are tested in isolation to verify their functionality.

Unix

A family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that form the basis for many cloud computing platforms.

Uptime

The amount of time a system is operational and available, typically expressed as a percentage of total time.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator)

A reference to a web resource that specifies its location on a computer network and mechanism for retrieving it.

User Account

A digital identity that provides access to systems and services, including authentication credentials and permissions.

User Agent

A software application that acts on behalf of a user, typically referring to web browsers or API clients.

User Pool

A directory service for managing user registration, authentication, and account recovery in applications.

UUID (Universally Unique Identifier)

A 128-bit identifier that is unique across both space and time, used for identifying information in distributed systems.

Uniform Resource Identifier (URI)

A string that identifies a particular resource, which can be a URL or URN (Uniform Resource Name).

Upstream

In networking and data flow, refers to the direction toward the source or the sending end of a connection.

Update

The process of modifying existing data, software, or configurations to newer versions or changed values.

Upload

The process of transferring data from a local system to a remote server or cloud storage service.

Usage Metrics

Measurements of how resources, applications, or services are being utilized, often used for billing and optimization.

User Authentication

The process of verifying the identity of a user attempting to access a system or application.

User Authorization

The process of determining what actions an authenticated user is permitted to perform within a system.

User Session

A temporary interactive session between a user and an application, typically managed through session tokens or cookies.

Utility Computing

A service provisioning model where computing resources are provided as a metered service similar to public utilities.

Unstructured Data

Information that doesn't have a pre-defined data model or isn't organized in a pre-defined manner.

Upstream Dependency

A component or service that another component depends on to function properly in a system architecture.

URL Encoding

The process of converting characters into a format that can be transmitted over the Internet in URLs.

URL Rewriting

A technique that modifies URLs on the fly to make them more user-friendly or to implement routing logic.

User Data

Information about users or initialization scripts that can be passed to cloud instances during launch.

Usability

The ease of use and learnability of a human-made object such as a tool or device, particularly in software interfaces.

User Experience (UX)

The overall experience of a person using a product, including their perceptions of utility, ease of use, and efficiency.

User Interface (UI)

The means by which users interact with and control a software application or hardware device.

UTF-8 (Unicode Transformation Format)

A character encoding capable of encoding all possible characters in Unicode using one to four bytes.

Unified API

A single application programming interface that provides access to multiple services or data sources.

Unit

A single component or module that can be independently tested, deployed, or managed within a larger system.

Upgrade

The process of replacing a product with a newer or better version, often involving improved features or capabilities.

URI Template

A compact sequence of characters for describing a range of Uniform Resource Identifiers through variable expansion.

URL Path

The portion of a URL that specifies the location of a resource within the server's directory structure.

URL Query String

The part of a URL that contains data to be passed to web applications, typically following a question mark.

User Behavior Analytics

The process of collecting and analyzing data about how users interact with applications and systems.

User Directory

A centralized repository that stores user account information and authentication credentials for an organization.

User Provisioning

The process of creating, managing, and deactivating user accounts and their access permissions across systems.

Utilization Rate

A metric that measures how much of available resources are being used over a specific time period.