Technical Terms

Technical Terms Glossary🔗

This glossary provides simple explanations of some technical terms used by the Data Intelligence team.

A🔗

Azure SQL🔗

Azure SQL is a cloud-based database service from Microsoft that lets businesses store, manage and access their data over the internet.

In the context of web and software development, the backend refers to the part of a system that users don't see. It’s responsible for managing data, application logic and server-side functionality. If you think of a restaurant, the backend is like the kitchen where all the cooking happens, while the front end is the dining area where customers enjoy their meals.

C🔗

Cloud Services🔗

Cloud services refer to computing resources—such as storage, servers, databases, networking, and software—that are delivered over the internet instead of being hosted on local computers or physical data centers. n simple terms, instead of buying and maintaining your own hardware, you "rent" resources from cloud providers like AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud.

CSV🔗

A Comma-Separated Values (CSV) file is like a big list of things written in a notebook. A CSV file does the same thing on a computer! It keeps information in a simple way, using commas (,) to separate things.

D🔗

DaaS🔗

Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) is a business model where data is made available on cloud infrastructure on demand and regardless of the consumer’s location or infrastructure through the internet.

E🔗

ETL🔗

Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) is a computing process to get, retreive, extract information. Then transform, change and modify the information to meet the requirements of the data warehouse and then load, upload and insert the data into the data warehouse.

F🔗

G🔗

H🔗

I🔗

J🔗

JSON🔗

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a lightweight data format that is easy for humans to read and write, and easy for machines to parse and generate. A really basic example of JSON looks like this:

{
  "name": "John",
  "age": 30,
  "city": "New York"
}

K🔗

L🔗

Legacy Software🔗

Old, obsolete, out of date software needing replacement.

M🔗

N🔗

O🔗

P🔗

Q🔗

R🔗

RDBMS🔗

Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) is a type of database management system that stores data in a structured data format using rows and columns.

S🔗

SaaS🔗

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is a business model in which applications on cloud infrastructure are made available on demand and regardless of the consumer's location or infrastructure through the internet.

Scale out🔗

Scaling out is adding more machines to the infrastructure to spread the load.

Scale up🔗

Scaling up infrastructure is adding more computing resources to a machine.

Semi Structured Data🔗

This data has some structure, but it's not as rigid as a table. There are patterns, but they don’t have to fit into fixed rows and columns. This is more flexible than structured data but still somewhat searchable (think JSON files).

SQL🔗

Structured Query Language (SQL) is a programming language used to manage and manipulate relational database management systems (RDBMS).

An example of a simple SQL query is:

SELECT name, age FROM users WHERE city = 'New York';

SSIS🔗

SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) is a propriety tool owned by Microsoft to write, deploy and run ETL processes. SQL Server Integration Services is a platform for building enterprise-level data integration and data transformations solutions.

Structured Data🔗

This is data that’s highly organized and stored in tables with rows and columns. Every piece of data fits perfectly into a specific place. It's easy to search and analyse because everything is in a fixed format.

T🔗

T-SQL🔗

Transact-Structured Query Language (T-SQL) is Microsoft's propriety language to manage databases, query data and add procedural programming into the a database.

U🔗

Unstructured Data🔗

This is data with no fixed format—it can be anything from text to images, videos, or emails. It doesn’t fit neatly into tables.

V🔗

W🔗

X🔗

XLSX🔗

XLSX is a file format used by Microsoft Excel to store spreadsheets. It's like a super smart notebook on a computer. It has fancier features than a CSV file such as colours, formulas and even pictures.