Cloud Terminology, Translated
The same concept has three names depending on the provider. Here is the translation table, plus the terms that genuinely mean something specific.
A great deal of cloud confusion is vocabulary. The same idea is a VPC, a Virtual Network or a VPC network depending on who is selling it. Here is the translation, and then the terms worth understanding properly.
The same thing, three names
| Concept | AWS | Azure | Google Cloud |
|---|---|---|---|
| Virtual machine | EC2 instance | Virtual Machine | Compute Engine instance |
| Object storage | S3 | Blob Storage | Cloud Storage |
| Block storage | EBS | Managed Disks | Persistent Disk |
| Private network | VPC | Virtual Network | VPC network |
| Instance firewall | Security Group | Network Security Group | Firewall rules |
| Serverless function | Lambda | Functions | Cloud Functions |
| Managed Kubernetes | EKS | AKS | GKE |
| Identity | IAM | Entra ID / RBAC | IAM |
| Audit log | CloudTrail | Activity Log | Cloud Audit Logs |
| Account boundary | Account | Subscription | Project |
| CDN | CloudFront | Azure CDN / Front Door | Cloud CDN |
| Managed relational DB | RDS | Azure Database | Cloud SQL |
The account boundary row matters most. AWS isolates with accounts, Azure with subscriptions, GCP with projects — and translating an architecture between platforms usually starts there.
Terms that are worth understanding precisely
- Region — a geographic location containing several isolated data centres. Your primary latency and residency decision.
- Availability zone — one isolated data centre within a region, with independent power and cooling.
- Edge location — a CDN point of presence. Caches content; does not run your workloads.
- Elastic — scales automatically with demand. Frequently used loosely; check whether it means automatic or merely possible.
- Managed — the provider operates it. Check exactly which layers, since the boundary varies by service.
- Serverless — no capacity to manage and no charge when idle. There are still servers.
- Provisioned — capacity reserved in advance and billed whether used or not.
- Ephemeral — does not survive instance stop or termination. Applies to local storage in particular.
Billing vocabulary
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| On demand | Pay per unit of time, no commitment |
| Reserved / committed | Discount in exchange for a 1 or 3 year term |
| Spot / preemptible | Deep discount, provider can reclaim the capacity |
| Egress | Data leaving the provider network — billed |
| Ingress | Data entering — usually free |
| Free tier | Either always free within limits, or free for 12 months |
| Service credit | Billing refund when an SLA is missed |
| Quota / limit | Maximum resources you may create — often the real constraint |
Quota is the one that stops people unexpectedly. It is not about money; it is a per-account ceiling that must be raised by request. See cloud service quotas explained.
Terms used loosely, and what to ask
- “High availability” — ask across what failure domain. One zone, several zones, or several regions?
- “Unlimited” — ask about fair use policies and rate limits, which always exist.
- “99.99% uptime” — ask which architecture is required to qualify.
- “Dedicated” — ask dedicated at which layer: cores, host, or hardware.
- “Encrypted” — ask at rest, in transit, or both, and who holds the keys.
- “Backup included” — ask retention period, where copies live, and whether you can restore to a point in time.
Every one of these has a precise answer in the documentation. Asking the question is what surfaces the difference between what was implied and what is offered.
Common questions
Why do providers use different names?
Partly historical, partly product differentiation. The underlying concepts are largely standardised even where the vocabulary is not.
Is a region the same as a country?
No. A region is a specific location that may or may not align with national boundaries, and a country may contain several. For residency requirements, check the specific region, not the country name.
What is a landing zone?
A pre-configured account structure with networking, identity and guardrails established before workloads arrive. Useful for larger organisations, unnecessary overhead for a single application.
What does “cloud native” mean?
Usually: containerised, dynamically orchestrated, and built from loosely coupled services. It is a description of an architectural style, not a standard, and it is used very loosely.
Where to go next
See IaaS, PaaS and SaaS explained and choosing a cloud region.
Read next
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