PCCN-K (Knowledge Professional) key terms

A documented agreement between a provider and a customer that states the services to be delivered and the measurable targets, such as availability or response time, that the provider commits to meet.

A specific, measurable target set for one aspect of a service, such as 99.9 percent monthly availability, that supports an SLA or internal quality goal and guides operational decisions.

A quantitative measure of a service's actual performance at a point in time, such as request success rate or latency, used to judge whether an objective is being met.

An internal agreement between teams within the same provider organization that defines the services and response times each team supplies so that customer-facing commitments can be met.

A contract with an external supplier that specifies the services and performance the supplier must deliver to support the provider's commitments in a customer service level agreement.

A structured, published list of the services a provider offers, including descriptions, prices, ordering options, and service levels, used by customers to request and understand what is available.

The complete set of services a provider manages, covering those in development, those live, and those retired, used to decide investment and lifecycle direction.

The portion of the service portfolio that holds services planned or in development but not yet available to customers, used for investment and roadmap decisions.

A document set that records all design aspects of a new or changed service, including requirements, architecture, acceptance criteria, and operational arrangements, so it can be built and transitioned consistently.

The lifecycle stage that moves new or changed services into live operation, covering build, testing, release, deployment, knowledge transfer, and early-life support.

The practice of assessing, authorizing, scheduling, and reviewing changes to services so that risk is balanced against the benefit of the change.

A group that reviews significant changes and advises the change authority on risk, impact, scheduling, and readiness before a decision to approve or reject is made.

A pre-authorized, low-risk change with a documented procedure and known outcome that can be executed without individual approval each time it is used.

A change that must be implemented urgently, often to restore service or close a security exposure, using an accelerated assessment and approval path with retrospective review.

The practice of planning, building, testing, and delivering releases into the live environment, ensuring components are correctly installed and the business receives expected value.

Any component that must be managed to deliver a service, such as hardware, software, documentation, or a person, recorded with its attributes and relationships in a configuration management database.

A repository that stores configuration records and the relationships between them, used to understand dependencies and assess the impact of changes and incidents.

The practice of restoring normal service as quickly as possible after an unplanned interruption or degradation, minimizing adverse impact on users and business operations.

The practice of identifying the underlying causes of incidents, documenting known errors, and driving permanent fixes or workarounds to reduce recurring disruption.

A problem that has been analyzed and has a documented root cause or a workaround, allowing support staff to resolve matching incidents faster.

An incident with high business impact or urgency that requires a coordinated, escalated response, dedicated communications, and often a formal review after resolution.

The practice of handling routine user requests, such as access, information, or standard provisioning, through a defined and often automated workflow.

A user's request for something that is part of normal service delivery, such as a password reset, new account, or standard equipment, rather than a failure of service.

The single point of contact between users and the provider, handling incidents, requests, and communication, and routing unresolved matters to specialist teams.

The act of moving an incident or request to a higher level of authority or technical skill, either to gain expertise (functional) or management attention (hierarchical).

The practice of ensuring services are accessible when needed by defining availability requirements, measuring achieved uptime, and reducing single points of failure.

The practice of ensuring service capacity and performance meet agreed demand in a cost-effective way, covering current needs, forecasts, and tuning of resources.

The practice of understanding and influencing customer demand for services, using patterns, pricing, or incentives so capacity can be matched to expected usage.

The practice of planning and testing recovery arrangements so that services and critical business functions can continue or resume within agreed timeframes after a disruption.

The maximum acceptable duration that a service or process may be unavailable after a disruption before the impact becomes unacceptable to the business.

The maximum acceptable amount of data loss measured in time before an incident, which determines how frequently backups or replication must occur.

A structured assessment that identifies critical business functions, their dependencies, and the consequences of disruption over time, used to set recovery priorities and targets.

A log recording identified risks with their likelihood, impact, owner, and mitigation actions, reviewed regularly to track treatment and changes in exposure.

The process of identifying risks, analyzing their likelihood and consequences, and evaluating them against criteria to decide which need treatment.

The selection and application of options to address a risk, such as avoiding, reducing, transferring, or accepting it, with residual risk monitored.

The ongoing practice of measuring service performance, identifying gaps against objectives, and implementing prioritized improvements, often managed through a register and regular review cycle.

A measure chosen to show how well a critical aspect of service or process performance is achieving its objective, used to steer decisions and improvement work.

A small number of conditions or capabilities that must be in place for a service or organization to achieve its goals, used to focus measurement.

The amount of unreliability permitted by a service level objective, calculated as the difference between the target and perfect performance, used to balance change velocity against stability.

The framework of decision rights, policies, and accountability that directs how services are planned, funded, and controlled to meet business and compliance obligations.

The lifecycle stage that defines what services a provider should offer, to whom, and how value will be created, funded, and differentiated from alternatives.

The end-to-end progression of a service through strategy, design, transition, operation, and continual improvement, with retirement as the final stage.

A classification of how cloud capabilities are delivered and shared between provider and consumer, commonly infrastructure as a service, platform as a service, and software as a service.

The arrangement describing who owns and accesses a cloud environment, such as public, private, community, or hybrid, which affects control, cost, and compliance.

The division of security and operational duties between a cloud provider and its customer, which varies by service model and must be understood to avoid control gaps.

The practice of collecting, analyzing, and reporting data about service quality, cost, and outcomes so that performance can be judged and improvement targeted.

The regular production and distribution of service performance information to stakeholders, tailored to their decisions and used to support reviews and accountability.