12. Glossary
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.. list-table:: Glossary
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   * - **Term**
     - **Definition**
   * - API
     - Application Programming Interface – allows communication between software components.
   * - AWS
     - Amazon Web Services – a cloud computing platform providing various services like storage, compute, and networking.
   * - Azure
     - Microsoft’s cloud computing platform offering services for AI, storage, and virtual machines.
   * - Backend
     - The server-side logic of an application responsible for data processing and business rules.
   * - CI/CD
     - Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment – automates software testing and deployment.
   * - Containerization
     - Packaging applications and dependencies into lightweight, portable containers (e.g., Docker).
   * - Docker Compose
     - A tool for defining and managing multi-container Docker applications.
   * - FastAPI
     - A high-performance Python web framework for building APIs.
   * - Frontend
     - The user-facing part of an application, often built with web technologies.
   * - GCP
     - Google Cloud Platform – a suite of cloud computing services including AI, storage, and Kubernetes.
   * - Grafana
     - An open-source platform for monitoring and observability with dashboards and alerts.
   * - Jupyter Notebooks
     - An interactive web-based notebook for writing and running Python code, commonly used in data science.
   * - Kubernetes
     - A container orchestration platform for managing deployments at scale.
   * - Logging
     - Recording system and application events for debugging and monitoring.
   * - Loki
     - A log aggregation system designed for storing and querying logs efficiently.
   * - Machine Learning
     - A branch of artificial intelligence that enables systems to learn from data and improve performance.
   * - MLOps
     - A set of practices combining machine learning and DevOps to automate and streamline ML model lifecycle management.
   * - MLflow
     - A platform for managing the lifecycle of machine learning models, including tracking and deployment.
   * - MinIO
     - A high-performance, S3-compatible object storage system.
   * - Monitoring
     - Tracking system performance, logs, and metrics to ensure stability.
   * - Nginx
     - A high-performance web server and reverse proxy used for serving web applications and APIs.
   * - Observability
     - Collecting logs, metrics, and traces for system visibility and debugging.
   * - PostgreSQL
     - A powerful open-source relational database system.
   * - Production
     - The live environment where applications run for end-users.
   * - Prometheus
     - A monitoring and alerting toolkit for collecting and processing metrics.
   * - Python
     - A popular programming language known for its simplicity and extensive support for data science and web applications.
   * - Pycharm
     - A widely used integrated development environment (IDE) for Python development.
   * - Scalability
     - The ability of a system to handle increased workload by adding resources.
   * - Staging
     - A pre-production environment used for testing before deploying to production.
   * - Streamlit
     - A Python framework for building interactive web applications for data visualization.
   * - Technical Debt
     - Short-term development compromises that may require refactoring in the future.
   * - Tempo
     - A distributed tracing system used for monitoring and debugging applications.
   * - Version Control
     - A system for tracking changes in code and collaborating with teams (e.g., Git).
   * - VS Code
     - A popular lightweight code editor with extensive plugin support.
   * - Webhook
     - A mechanism for real-time communication between applications using HTTP callbacks.