ITIL 4 Cloud Services key terms

A service delivered over a network that provides on-demand access to shared, scalable computing resources, with minimal provider interaction and measured usage.

The defined pattern describing how a cloud service is delivered and consumed, such as infrastructure, platform, or software as a service.

An architecture where one instance of a service and its underlying resources are shared by multiple customers, with logical isolation between their data and configuration.

The ability to automatically scale resources up or down to match demand, so capacity tracks workload needs without manual intervention.

The capability of a system to handle growing workloads by adding resources, either vertically by enlarging a node or horizontally by adding nodes.

The division of security and operational duties between cloud provider and customer, which varies by service model and must be documented for each service.

The plan defining which cloud services an organization will adopt, why, for which outcomes, and how value will be measured against business objectives.

A phased plan sequencing cloud migration and modernization work, with milestones, dependencies, and decision points tied to business priorities.

The ITIL model of six interconnected activities-plan, improve, engage, design and transition, obtain and build, and deliver and support-that convert demand into value.

The specific sequence of activities and resources an organization uses to create and deliver a product or service to a consumer.

The process by which services produce beneficial outcomes for stakeholders, judged by the customer's perception of usefulness and the provider's costs and risks.

The activity of defining cloud service components, architecture, service levels, and interfaces so that they meet agreed requirements and are operable.

A structured record describing a cloud service's purpose, owner, pricing, dependencies, and request process, used by consumers to select and order services.

A user-facing interface allowing consumers to browse, request, and manage approved cloud services without direct provider or service desk intervention.

The set of activities that move a new or changed cloud service into live operation, including build, test, release, and deployment steps.

The practice of making new or changed services available to users in a controlled way, ensuring components are combined, tested, and deployed as planned.

The practice that maximizes successful service changes by assessing risk, authorizing changes, and scheduling them while balancing speed and stability.

Any component under configuration control that contributes to a service, recorded with its attributes and relationships to other components in a configuration management database.

A maintained record of all cloud resources and accounts in use, including ownership, tags, and lifecycle state, used for cost and risk control.

The practice of restoring normal service operation as quickly as possible after disruption, minimizing adverse impact on business activity.

The practice of reducing the likelihood and impact of incidents by identifying actual and potential causes and managing workarounds and known errors.

A structured investigation that identifies the underlying reason a failure occurred, so that recurrence can be prevented rather than merely contained.

A documented agreement between a provider and a customer that identifies required services and the expected level of service.

A measurable target for a specific service characteristic, such as availability percentage or response time, used to track performance against commitments.

The amount of unreliability a service may experience within a period before breaching its objective, used to balance release velocity against stability.

The system of policies, decision rights, and oversight that directs how cloud services are selected, used, and controlled to meet organizational objectives.

Expressing governance rules as machine-readable definitions that are automatically enforced during provisioning and deployment, reducing manual review and drift.

The use of tooling to continuously check cloud configurations and evidence against regulatory and internal requirements, generating audit trails without manual sampling.

A log of identified cloud-related risks with owners, likelihood, impact, and mitigation status, reviewed regularly as part of governance.

Dependence on one provider's proprietary services or interfaces that makes switching costly or technically difficult, limiting future options.

A documented plan for migrating data and workloads away from a provider, including data formats, portability testing, and transition timelines.

The practice of forecasting, allocating, and controlling cloud spending through tagging, budgets, and optimization of resource consumption.

Adjusting resource allocations to match actual workload demand, removing over-provisioned capacity while maintaining required performance.

The recurring practice of aligning services with changing business needs by identifying and implementing improvements to products, services, and practices.

A record of improvement opportunities with their expected value, priority, owner, and status, used to manage and evidence improvement work.

Measures that track business results achieved through a service, such as transaction success or user task completion, rather than infrastructure activity alone.

The capability to understand a system's internal state from its outputs-logs, metrics, and traces-enabling faster diagnosis in distributed cloud environments.

The controls ensuring one customer's data and workloads cannot be accessed or affected by another customer sharing the same underlying platform.

The practice of supporting the agreed quality of a service by handling user-initiated requests through an effective and user-friendly process.