Hosting Glossary

General concepts

• PaaS (Platform as a Service): you code your app, the platform hosts it — it provides the infra, the OS, the runtime, and the deployment pipeline. Opposite: IaaS (you manage the VMs).
• Kubernetes (K8s): orchestrator that runs Docker containers on a cluster of servers. Wakastart is built on top of it.
• Pod: the smallest K8s unit, contains 1+ containers. A ServiceInstance with replicas: 3 gives 3 pods.
• Cluster: a set of servers (nodes) running K8s together. Wakastart operates several clusters (one per major environment).
• Namespace: an isolation boundary within a cluster. Each Wakastart environment has its own dedicated namespace — this is what isolates resources between apps and between environments.

Images and registry

• Docker image: a frozen package containing your code + its dependencies + the minimal OS needed to run. Reproducible.
• Registry: a store for Docker images. Wakastart provides a private registry per app — your images never leave it.
• Tag: a version name of an image (e.g. :latest, :1.2.3, :abc123).
• Quota: the maximum space an app's images can take up in the registry, set by a platform administrator. When it's reached, Wakastart refuses to start a new build. Nothing is limited in the registry itself. See Registry quota.
• Purge: the automatic, nightly deletion of the images of the oldest builds. Disabled by default, enabled app by app. Deployed images, and images still in use, are always kept. See Image retention.

Storage

• S3 Bucket: a container for files (objects) accessible over HTTP, identified by a unique name. No real folder hierarchy, just keys.
• Relational DB (PostgreSQL, MySQL): tables, columns, joins, ACID transactions. For transactional data.
• NoSQL document DB (MongoDB): collections of JSON documents, flexible schema. For evolving nested objects.
• Key-value store (Valkey/Redis): SET key value / GET key. For caching, sessions, in-memory counters.

Security

• Secret manager: an encrypted vault that stores sensitive credentials (DB passwords, API keys, certificates). Wakastart provides one, isolated per app. You never access it directly: the platform injects secrets into your pods at startup.

Network

• Gateway: the platform's entry point for incoming HTTP traffic. It terminates TLS (certificates) and applies HttpRoute routing rules.
• HttpRoute: a routing rule that says "this path → this service".
• DNS: system that translates names (api.exemple.com) into IPs. Wakastart provisions CNAME records with the platform domain's registrar.

CI/CD

• CI (Continuous Integration): automated tests on every commit. Not managed by Wakastart (you use GitHub Actions, Jenkins, etc.).
• CD (Continuous Deployment): automatic deployment after a successful build. Managed by Wakastart via auto-deploy.