Glossary

Application programming interface (API)

An application programming interface (API) is an interface or communication protocol of a software application service. Versio.io provides an API to internal services that allows customers to access and store data without a GUI.

API token

An API Tokens are used in token-based authentication to allow an application to access an API.

Asset

An asset is defined as any resource owned by a business. In more detail, an asset is anything tangible or intangible that can be owned or controlled to produce value and that is held by a company to produce positive economic value.

Billing

Billing is the third step of cost allocation process in which the costs of all rating items are summarized.

Billing period

Billing period is the time period for which all prices from rating are summarized and invoiced to the customer.

Business process

A business process describes a series of actions or procedures that are repeated in their progression. A process is usually comprised of a sequence of steps and occurs within a defined starting point and endpoint.

Change

A change is a new version of an instance with changed attribute values. The change is always associated with a dedicated UTC time.

Compliance

Compliance refers to requirements that an organization must meet in order to conform with law and to prevent any legal action, fines or penalties. Compliance policies are in contrast to governance policies not optional.

Configuration item

A configuration item denotes a structural unit in a configuration item management system. It can applied to anything designated for the application of the elements of configuration management and treated as a single entity in the configuration-management system. Configuration items, their versions, and their changes form the basis of any configuration audit.

Configuration management database

A Configuration Management Database is an ITIL database to store information about hardware and software assets. This database acts as a data warehouse for the organization and also stores information regarding the relationships among its assets.

Coordinated Universal Time

The coordinated universal time (UTC) is the coordinated world time. It is a global time standard from which the times in time zones worldwide are derived. The current time in a time zone is also officially expressed by the time difference to UTC.

Cost allocation

Cost allocation is the accounting of ressources and services on the basis of detailed usage data based on Versio.io instances and changes.

Entity

An entity is the umbrella term for an object with the same characteristic. Any entities can be stored in a Versio.io (environment)[#environment].

Examples:

• Host
• Application
• Problem
• etc.)

Environment

Versio.io is a multi-client capable software application. All domain related instances and changes from a customer are stored in one separated environment.

There are no relationships between data from different environments.

Data from environments of a Versio.io instance can be physically moved to another Versio.io instance.

Governance

Governance comprise rules that are created by executives and the board of directors in order to establish ethical terms and requirements for their company. Governance policies are optional and determine the company’s attitude towards business practices and risks.

Historisation

Historisation is the provision of the current status of an instance and all previous changes to it.

Instance

A specific object of an entity is called an instance. The characteristics are reflected in the attribute values.

Examples:

• Host 'prod-crm'
• Application 'SAP CRM'
• Problem '651'
• etc.)

Job

In data processing a job refers to the operation of computer programs in which the set of tasks or data provided as input in one or more data sets is processed completely, automatically and usually sequentially.

Mediation

Mediation is the first step of a cost allocation process in which all changes to be included in the cost allocation are collected.

Pipeline

A pipeline describes the automation of a chain of dataprocessing processess or other software entities. It involves the three processes build, test and deploy.

Process

A process is the runtime environment for a program on a computer system, as well as the binary code embedded in the program during execution. A process is dynamically controlled by the operating system by means of certain actions with which the operating system sets it to appropriate states. A process is also referred to as the entire status information of a running program.

Process instance

The process instance is based on the equivalent instace from the Versio.io CMDB. Within the activation of the process monitoring for an instance, the data from Versio.io are processed and edited to one process instance. To sum up, a process instance corresponds to one single business process.

Process master

The process master is derived from all variants of one business process. In the process master the single process variants are condensed with all their steps and sequences that the process has ever undergone.

Process metrics

Process metrics refer to standard measurements that are used to evaluate and benchmark the performance of business processes. They are a tool for companies that intend to monitor, evaluate, and improve their operational performance across the enterprise.

Process mining

Process mining comprises different methods for the analysis of business processes. It refers to the elicitation and conversion of data for process monitoring. With process mining you gain objective and fact-based insights that you can use to analyze and improve your already existing business processes.

Process monitoring

Process monitoring describes the action of observing business processes or a series of processes with regard to performance of systems, equipment, and software and how they integrate and work within a whole process.

Process variant

A process variant is a subsumption of process instances that undergo the same steps of a business process. Each variant differs from other variants by at least one step.

Rating

Rating is the second step of a cost allocation process in which all individual changes from the mediation are priced.

Rating granularity

Rating granularity is the time period for which a price is calculated (5,10,30,60 minutes).

Revision safety

Revision safety refers to the revision-safe archiving of information or data and is an essential part of the compliance of an information system. Revision-safe archiving systems are characterized by a locatable, comprehendible, immutable and tamper-proof documentation of information.
In terms of the electronical archiving the following criteria for revision safety have to be applied:

• Validity
• Completeness
• Safety of the entire process
• Protection against changes and falsifications
• Protection against loss
• Use only by authorized users
• Compliance with retention periods
• Documentation of the procedure
• Traceability and auditability

Risk

Within the scope of risk management risks refers to threats or negative effects on the business objectives of an organisation. Risk management icomprises the processes of identifying, assessing, controlling and prioritizing of possible enterprise threats. These enterprise risks can be caused by various sources as for instance financial uncertainty, legal obligations, mismanagement, accidents or natural catastrophes. Risk management is covered by governance and compliance.

Service (application)

An application service is a type of software service that provides specific business functionality, usually within the context of a larger application or enterprise system. These services are designed to perform a discrete set of tasks or functions, such as processing user requests, managing data, or interfacing with other systems.

Service level agreement

An service level agreement (SLA) is a formal contract typically an (internal or external) customer regarding outcomes around delivery of the service level objective.

Service level indicator

An service level indicator (SLI) is a way of expressing whether your system is succeeding at meeting your goals.

Service level objective

The service level objective (SLO) shows which states how often the SLI must succeed over a given time period.

With clear SLOs you make clear and accurate statements about the impact of both production incidents and development activities on your overall quality of service.

Software as a service

Software as a service (SaaS) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted.

Swimlane

A swimlane is used within the business process monitoring and denominates the processor or the agent of a sub-process. A swimlane is important to clarify job shares or responsibilites.

Topology

A topology is a visualization of instances and their relations.

Variants:

• Vertical topology
  • application <-> service <-> process <-> host
• Horizontal topology
  • Service <-> Service
  • Process <-> Process
  • Hosts <-> Hosts
  • Network devices <-> Network devices

Workflow

A workflow is the technical description of a process sequence. The prerequisites must be given to automate the process on a technical level. A workflow varies in its length e.g. it can endure just a second or several years.