IT Management

Compliance, risk and governance

This glossary contains definitions related to compliance. Some definitions explain the meaning of words used in compliance regulations. Other definitions are related to the strategies that compliance officers use to mitigate risk and create a manageable compliance infrastructure.

• PTO (paid time off, personal time off)

  Paid time off (PTO) is a work policy that provides employees with a pool of bankable hours that can be used for all purposes.

• known known

  A known known is information that is fully studied and well understood, so that an individual or organization can have confidence in its comprehension and relevance.

• unknown unknown

  An unknown unknown is unidentified information.

CRM

The goal of customer experience management (CEM) is to optimize customer satisfaction at each touchpoint of the customer journey. This involves creating customer-centric strategies to improve reach, engagement and retention. Definitions in this glossary include terms about marketing and creating a brand personality, the use of AI and RPA in martech, capturing and analyzing customer feedback and contact center automation.

• data-driven marketing

  Data-driven marketing is a strategy in which marketers use statistics and metrics to assess the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and help make better decisions about future campaigns.

• showrooming (reverse showrooming)

  Showrooming is the practice of examining a product in a brick-and-mortar store, then purchasing it online for a lower price.

• mystery shopping software

  Mystery shopping software is a type of ERP tool that helps organizations manage and observe all components of a mystery shopping program.

ERP

Terms related to business, including definitions about project management and words and phrases about human resources, finance and vertical industries.

• professional services

  A professional service is an intangible product that a contractor or product vendor sells to help a customer manage a specific part of their business.

• mystery shopping software

  Mystery shopping software is a type of ERP tool that helps organizations manage and observe all components of a mystery shopping program.

• PTO (paid time off, personal time off)

  Paid time off (PTO) is a work policy that provides employees with a pool of bankable hours that can be used for all purposes.

Government IT

Terms related to government IT, including definitions about specific federal, state and local government programs as well as words and phrases about policy and compliance.

• U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)

  U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is a United States federal government agency tasked with the enforcing of justice and law.

• Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI)

  Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) is the proposed Department of Defense (DoD) cloud infrastructure network.

• compliance audit

  A compliance audit is a comprehensive review of an organization's adherence to regulatory guidelines.

Healthcare IT

Terms related to healthcare IT, including definitions about healthcare information and management systems and words and phrases about electronic health records, meaningful use, government regulations and medical technology.

• telestroke (telestroke services)

  Telestroke is a web-based approach to treating stroke victims who have not been admitted to a hospital. In its most basic form, a telestroke system requires a neurologist and attending nurse to have a high-speed Internet connection and videoconferencing capabilities through a phone, laptop, tablet or desktop computer.

• HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)

  HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) is United States legislation that provides data privacy and security provisions for safeguarding medical information.

• electronic protected health information (ePHI)

  Electronic protected health information (ePHI) is protected health information (PHI) that is produced, saved, transferred or received in an electronic form. In the United States, ePHI management is covered under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Security Rule.

HR management

• professional services

  A professional service is an intangible product that a contractor or product vendor sells to help a customer manage a specific part of their business.

• PTO (paid time off, personal time off)

  Paid time off (PTO) is a work policy that provides employees with a pool of bankable hours that can be used for all purposes.

• digital workplace

  The digital workplace is the concept that businesses should use digital transformation (DX) to align technology, employees and business processes to improve operational efficiency and meet organizational goals.

IT procurement

Terms related to the activities and procedures necessary to acquire information technology (IT) products and services.

• SAP Business One

  SAP Business One is an ERP software platform specifically intended for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

• paradox of choice

  The paradox of choice is an observation that having many options to choose from, rather than making people happy and ensuring they get what they want, can cause them stress and problematize decision-making.

• Linkerd

  Linkerd is an open-source network proxy developed by Buoyant to be installed as a service mesh. Linkerd is one of the first products to be associated with the term service mesh and supports platforms such as Docker and Kubernetes.

Network management

Terms related to managing computer networks, including definitions about LANS or WANS and words and phrases about network design, troubleshooting, security and backups.

• event

  An event, in a computing context, is an action or occurrence that can be identified by a program and has significance for system hardware or software.

• attack surface

  An attack surface is the total sum of the vulnerabilities that can be used to carry out a security exploit. Attack surfaces can be physical or digital.

• Software as a Service (SaaS)

  Software as a service (SaaS) is a software distribution model in which a third-party provider hosts applications and makes them available to customers over the Internet.

Project management

Terms related to project management, including definitions about project management methodologies and tools.

• gig economy

  A gig economy is a free market system in which temporary positions are common and organizations contract with independent workers for short-term engagements.

• unknown known

  An unknown known is information that an individual or organization has in its possession but whose existence, relevance or value has not been realized.

• contingency budget (cost contingency)

  Contingency, in the context of project management, is an amount of money that is included to cover potential events that are not specifically accounted for in a cost estimate.

Security management

Terms related to security management, including definitions about intrusion detection systems (IDS) and words and phrases about asset management, security policies, security monitoring, authorization and authentication.

• passphrase

  A passphrase is a string of characters longer than the usual password (which is typically from four to 16 characters long) that is used in creating a digital signature (an encoded signature that proves to someone that it was really you who sent a message) or in an encryption or a decryption of a message.

• Diffie-Hellman key exchange (exponential key exchange)

  Diffie-Hellman key exchange, also called exponential key exchange, is a method of digital encryption that uses a number raised to specific powers to produce decryption keys that are never directly transmitted, making the task of a would-be code breaker mathematically overwhelming... (Continued)

• known unknown

  A known unknown is information whose existence you are aware of but that is not in your possession.

SEO

Definitions related to search engine optimization, including definitions about SEO and words and phrases about bots, spiders, organic traffic and all areas of search engine marketing (SEM).

• microdata

  Microdata is a type of specification language that is embedded within HTML content to improve machine readability, annotate elements and analyze web pages.

• Click to Tweet

  Click to Tweet is a website that automatically generates links for users to share content through their own Twitter accounts.

• Google My Business

  Google My Business is a free online business listing service that is integrated with the Google search engine.

Software asset management

Terms related to software management, including definitions about licensing and words and phrases about software lifecycle management and software asset management.

• event

  An event, in a computing context, is an action or occurrence that can be identified by a program and has significance for system hardware or software.

• Software as a Service (SaaS)

  Software as a service (SaaS) is a software distribution model in which a third-party provider hosts applications and makes them available to customers over the Internet.

• enterprise content management (ECM)

  Enterprise content management (ECM) is a set of defined processes, strategies and tools that allow a business to effectively obtain, organize, store and deliver critical information to its employees, business stakeholders and customers. To differentiate themselves from competitors, some ECM vendors are beginning to market their products as content management services or content management platforms.

Storage management

Terms related to data storage management, including definitions about enterprise storage and words and phrases about storage infrastructure, storage capacity and hierarchical storage management (HSM).

• data lake

  A data lake is a storage repository that holds a vast amount of raw data in its native format until it is needed.

• computational storage

  Computational storage is defined as an architecture that couples compute with storage in order to reduce data movement. In doing so, the ability to relieve stress on the interconnected components of the host platform is realized.

• public cloud storage

  Public cloud storage, also called storage-as-a-service or online storage is a service model that provides data storage on a pay-per-use basis, similar to the way a public utility like electric or gas provides and charges for services.