Nepho vocabulary

Term	Definition
nepho	The orchestration/management engine for creating cloud services. Nepho manages the local installation and usage of cloudlets, and abstracts cloud implementations into providers.
cloudlet	A package containing all of the components necessary to spin up a new stack. A cloudlet consists of one or more blueprints and associated resources along with a payload that contains configuration and (optionally) application code.
provider	A nepho module that abstracts the implementation details of a specific cloud technology vendor/service. Each blueprint is specific to a single provider. Nepho core passes the provider a scenario to act upon.
context	The amalgamation of all necessary parameters for running a scenario. The context is constructed by creating a union of all the parameters required by the provider, cloudlet, and blueprint, in that order of inheritance, and then specifying/overriding them as appropriate using parameters stored in nepho or passed at the command line.
blueprint	A configuration object that incorporates an infrastructure template and configuration management code. Blueprints are specific to a provider and the structure of a blueprint varies based on the provider. Blueprints are customized through a context.
parameter	A variable or option used to customize a blueprint when creating a new scenario. Parameters can come from a variety of sources (stored, command line, specified by the provider, specified by the cloudlet, etc.) and are collected into a context.
scenario	The final definition used to spin up a stack. A scenario consists of a cloudlet and blueprint, a context, and a payload. It is passed by the nepho core to a provider, where it is acted upon. The ephemeral product of a scenario is a stack.
payload	The set of data passed to each created instance. After the infrastructure is created, the payload is accessed to perform configuration management and deployment actions. The payload contains several hooks that are automatically run by the provider.
hook	A script fired on an instance by the provider, triggered by nepho lifecycle events.
stack	A live, running, ephemeral construct of infrastructure, configuration, application code, etc.