Glossary
The software reliability glossary.
Clear definitions for uptime monitoring, API checks, incidents, alerts, status pages, webhooks, SSL certificates, cron jobs, and the systems that keep software dependable.
Featured categories
- MonitoringMonitoring is the practice of checking websites, APIs, certificates, and scheduled jobs from outside the system so teams learn about failures before customers do.
- IncidentsIncidents are verified periods of degraded or failed service that a team tracks from detection through recovery and review.
- AlertsAlerts are messages that tell the right people when a monitor fails, recovers, or needs attention through channels they already use.
- Status PagesStatus pages are public or private surfaces that communicate current service health, active incidents, maintenance, and historical uptime.
- APIs and WebhooksAPIs and webhooks are how services exchange requests and event notifications over HTTP, including status codes, payloads, signatures, and retries.
- SSL, TLS, and DNSSSL, TLS, and DNS cover how browsers and clients find hosts and establish encrypted connections, including certificates, hostnames, and resolution.
- PerformancePerformance terms describe how fast and consistently a service responds, including latency, timeouts, thresholds, and related availability signals.
- Reliability MetricsReliability metrics quantify how often a service works as expected and how quickly teams detect and recover from failure.
- Scheduled JobsScheduled jobs are tasks that run on a calendar or interval, such as backups, reports, and cron workers, and need proof that they finished on time.
- Teams and OperationsTeams and operations terms cover ownership, maintenance, audit trails, and the habits that keep reliability work coordinated across people.
Featured terms
- Alert routingAlert routing is rules that decide which channels receive which events.
- API monitoringAPI monitoring checks HTTP endpoints on a schedule to confirm status codes, timing, and response content still match expectations.
- Heartbeat monitoringHeartbeat monitoring is expecting a periodic signal from a job and alerting when the signal is late or missing.
- IncidentIncident is a tracked period of degraded or failed service.
- Incident verificationIncident verification is confirming a failure is real before treating it as an incident.
- Mean time to recoveryMean time to recovery is the average time from failure to restored service.
- SSL certificate monitoringSSL certificate monitoring is watching certificates for upcoming expiration and validity problems.
- Status pageStatus page is a public or private page that communicates current service health and incidents.
- Uptime monitoringUptime monitoring repeatedly checks whether a website, API, or service is reachable and behaving as expected from outside the system.
- Webhook signatureWebhook signature is a cryptographic proof that a webhook came from the expected sender.
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Alphabetical index
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- Uptime monitoringUptime monitoring repeatedly checks whether a website, API, or service is reachable and behaving as expected from outside the system.
- Website monitoringWebsite monitoring checks a public web page or site on a schedule to confirm it responds successfully for visitors.
- API monitoringAPI monitoring checks HTTP endpoints on a schedule to confirm status codes, timing, and response content still match expectations.
- Endpoint monitoringEndpoint monitoring is watching a specific URL or route. Teams use the term to keep checks, alerts, and reviews precise.
- HTTP monitoringHTTP monitoring is checking services over HTTP. Teams use the term to keep checks, alerts, and reviews precise.
- HTTPS monitoringHTTPS monitoring is checking services over HTTPS with TLS. Teams use the term to keep checks, alerts, and reviews precise.
- External monitoringExternal monitoring is checking a service from outside its private network. Teams use the term to keep checks, alerts, and reviews precise.
- Service monitoringService monitoring is watching a customer-facing service for health. Teams use the term to keep checks, alerts, and reviews precise.