CNCF is excited to announce the new CNCF Cloud Native Glossary Project, which is intended to be used as a reference for the common terms used when talking about cloud native applications. 

The glossary is launching with 25 terms to begin and as this is an ongoing project, more will be added with time. The Cloud Native Glossary project is being spearheaded by the Business Value Subcommittee (BVS), whose primary goal is to provide tools to educate executives, business leaders, and non-technical audiences on cloud native technologies and their business value. The Cloud Native Glossary is a foundational project to provide anyone beginning with cloud native an introduction that is largely free of jargon and assumptions of pre-existing familiarity. The next project within the group will be focused on personas and tieing glossary terms with business outcomes by role.

“When we started the subcommittee we realized pretty early on that folks were not using terms in a uniform way. We started the subcommittee to make it easier for folks to talk about cloud native tech so it became pretty obvious that common definitions would go a long way. The glossary was born out of that, basically the need for everyone to be working off of a common set of definitions that we could both agree on, and crowdsource so they evolve over time,” said Jason Morgan, Technical Evangelist for Linkerd at Buoyant.

Up until now, much of the content produced with CNCF has been catered towards a technical audience with a level of understanding of the cloud native ecosystem. In order for cloud native computing to truly be prolific, it is important to arm non-technical executives and business leaders with the tools to understand both the cloud native stack and the value it brings to businesses. 

“As technologists we have a moral obligation to ensure that business stakeholders understand the transformative change that cloud native allows, and that cloud native isn’t seen only as a set of technologies,” said Daniel Jones, Managing Director of EngineerBetter. “It’s for this reason that I’m excited that the Cloud Native Glossary is a first step towards assisting the organisational change that cloud native makes possible.”

“Before working in the tech industry, I didn’t even know what a virtual machine was. So as someone who had to start from scratch, I know how hard it can be to wrap your head around cloud native concepts. Our goal is to make these concepts easily accessible to anyone who’s interested and we look forward to collaborating with the community on this project,” said Catherine Paganini, Head of Marketing at Buoyant.

To make it easier to work on individual terms, we’ve moved them into individual files in the definitions folder. Each term falls under one of three categories: 1) technology, 2) property, and 3) concept. To learn how to navigate this GitHub page and submit issues and/or PRs, please refer to the how-to guide. Before submitting a PR, please ensure you follow the style guide.

If you are interested in contributing to the Cloud Native Glossary, visit the GitHub page today! The PDF with the terms can be found on GitHub.

To hear more about the business value of cloud native technology during the Business Value Track at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2021 Virtual from May 4-7!