Term 1
/etc/hosts
A local text file on Unix-like operating systems that manually maps hostnames to IP addresses, overriding DNS for specified entries.
Acronym study
Terms 1–30 of 595 Google PCA acronyms and key terms. Each entry includes a plain-English definition and a link to the full 800-word glossary page with exam context and practice questions.
Term 1
A local text file on Unix-like operating systems that manually maps hostnames to IP addresses, overriding DNS for specified entries.
Term 2
/etc/resolv.conf is a configuration file on Linux and Unix-like systems that tells the computer which Domain Name System (DNS) servers to use when converting domain names like google.com into IP addresses.
Term 3
5G is the fifth generation of cellular network technology, designed to deliver faster speeds, lower latency, and support for many more connected devices than previous generations.
Term 4
802.1X is a network access control standard that authenticates devices before they are allowed to connect to a wired or wireless network.
Term 5
An A record is a DNS record that maps a domain name to the IPv4 address of the server hosting that domain.
Term 6
An access point is a device that creates a wireless local area network, usually by connecting to a wired network and broadcasting a Wi-Fi signal for computers, phones, and tablets to join.
Term 7
Active-active is a high-availability architecture where two or more nodes run workloads simultaneously and share the load, ensuring continuous service even if one node fails.
Term 8
Active-passive is a high-availability architecture where one system handles all active workloads while an identical passive system remains on standby, ready to take over if the active system fails.
Term 9
Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is a network protocol that maps a device's IP address to its physical MAC address so data can travel across a local network.
Term 10
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is a managed container orchestration service on Microsoft Azure that simplifies deploying, managing, and scaling containerized applications using Kubernetes.
Term 11
An Application Load Balancer is a managed network service that distributes incoming web traffic across multiple target servers based on the content of the request, such as the URL path or HTTP headers.
Term 12
An alerting policy is a set of rules that defines when to send notifications about a system condition that needs attention.
Term 13
An Alias record is a DNS record type that maps a hostname to another hostname, seamlessly routing traffic to AWS resources like load balancers or CloudFront distributions.
Term 14
AlloyDB is a fully managed, PostgreSQL-compatible database service from Google Cloud designed for high performance, scalability, and reliability for transactional and analytical workloads.
Term 15
Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) is a scalable, fully managed cloud file storage service that can be accessed by multiple Amazon EC2 instances concurrently using the NFS protocol.
Term 16
Amazon FSx is a fully managed service that makes it easy to launch, run, and scale feature-rich, high-performance file systems in the cloud, supporting popular file systems like Windows File Server and Lustre.
Term 17
Analytical data is information that has been cleaned, structured, and optimized for querying and reporting to support business decision-making.
Term 18
Anthos is a Google Cloud platform that lets you run applications consistently across different computing environments, like on-premises data centers and multiple public clouds.
Term 19
Apigee is a Google Cloud platform for designing, securing, and analyzing APIs that connect applications and services.
Term 20
App Engine is a fully managed serverless platform from Google Cloud that lets developers build and deploy applications without worrying about the underlying infrastructure.
Term 21
AWS App Runner is a fully managed container service that lets you deploy web applications and APIs directly from source code or a container image without managing the underlying infrastructure.
Term 22
An App Service plan is a set of compute resources that defines the infrastructure, pricing tier, and scaling capabilities for one or more Azure App Service applications.
Term 23
Application Default Credentials (ADC) is a built-in Google Cloud mechanism that automatically finds and provides the right credentials for your application to authenticate to Google Cloud services without hardcoding secrets.
Term 24
An Application Gateway is a network device or cloud service that manages and secures traffic between users and web applications by applying rules, routing requests, and offloading tasks like SSL encryption.
Term 25
A set of rules and tools that allows one software program to talk to another, like a messenger between applications.
Term 26
An Application Security Group (ASG) is a cloud networking feature that groups virtual machines logically and allows you to apply security rules based on the application workload, rather than individual IP addresses.
Term 27
An ARM template is a JSON file that defines the infrastructure and configuration for Azure resources, enabling repeatable and consistent deployments.
Term 28
Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is a network protocol used to map a device's IP address to its physical MAC address so data can be delivered correctly on a local network.
Term 29
Artifact Registry is a managed service for storing, managing, and securing container images and other software packages in a centralized repository.
Term 30
An Availability Set is a logical grouping of virtual machines in Azure that helps ensure high availability by distributing VMs across different physical hardware within a datacenter.