> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.internal.nscale.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Glossary > Plain-English definitions of the terms used across the Fleet Manager docs. This is a practical glossary, not a standards document. Use it to translate conversations, tickets, logs, and PRs into ordinary language. When a term has both an internal and external meaning, prefer the internal meaning for implementation decisions. For example, Fleet Manager's device operational states are code-backed enums, not generic asset-management labels. ### 1Password Secret source for vault-scoped Fleet Manager runtime/operator credentials and service-account tokens. Best source: [1Password CLI documentation](https://developer.1password.com/docs/cli) ### Allocation Fleet Manager grouping that associates devices with a tenant or intended customer use. Best source: [Tenants and allocations](../operator-guide/tenants-and-allocations) ### Argo CD GitOps deployment UI/operator used to sync deployed Fleet Manager images and configuration. Often written **ArgoCD**. Best source: [Argo CD documentation](https://argo-cd.readthedocs.io/en/stable/) ### Azure Data Explorer See [Kusto](#kusto). ### BMC Baseboard Management Controller; out-of-band management chip used for power, console, and low-level server control. Best source: [DMTF Redfish standard](https://www.dmtf.org/standards/redfish) ### Burn-in Stress and validation testing before hardware is trusted for customer workloads. Best source: [Build a new burn-in test](../developer-guide/authoring-guides/build-a-new-burn-in-test) ### Cluster A grouped compute environment, usually scheduled by SLURM or Kubernetes, where workloads run across multiple nodes. Best source: [nscale compute clusters](https://docs.nscale.com/docs/compute/clusters) ### Control Center Operations console / lifecycle automation layer in the Fleet Operations product story. Best source: [nscale Fleet Operations](https://www.nscale.com/blog/fleet-operations) ### Customer custody Whether a node is under customer control, nscale control, quarantine, reclaim, or related operational custody. Best source: [Device state machines](../developer-guide/device-state-machines) ### DCGM NVIDIA Data Center GPU Manager; GPU health, diagnostics, and telemetry tooling. Best source: [NVIDIA DCGM documentation](https://docs.nvidia.com/datacenter/dcgm/latest/index.html) ### DCIM Data Center Infrastructure Management; structured records of physical assets, locations, racks, power, and connectivity. Best source: [NetBox documentation](https://netboxlabs.com/docs/netbox/) ### Device See [Node](#node). ### DHCP Protocol that assigns network configuration to a host during boot or provisioning. Best source: [RFC 2131](https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2131) ### Fleet The population of hardware Fleet Manager is responsible for observing and moving through lifecycle states. Best source: [Overview](./overview) ### fleetctl Typer CLI entry point for infra, enrollment, BMC, DHCP, reports, hardware tests, and deployment standup. Best source: [`src/fleet_manager/cli/main.py`](https://github.com/nscaledev/fleet-manager/blob/main/src/fleet_manager/cli/main.py) ### Good-put Commercially useful GPU output after failures, idle time, and remediation overhead are removed. Best source: [Fleet Manager: Product Definition](https://app.notion.com/p/nscalecloud/Fleet-Manager-Product-Definition-230caf6bfadc8065bc63d7b0477d5ae4#230caf6bfadc80b89181e4d8125f1765) ### GPU Graphics Processing Unit; the accelerator customers rent to train, tune, or serve AI models. Best source: [NVIDIA glossary](https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/glossary/) ### Handover Moving validated infrastructure into a customer-ready or customer-controlled state. Best source: [Workflows reference](../operator-guide/workflows-reference) ### Harbor nscale registry mirror for Chainguard base images; local Docker builds require login. Best source: [README](https://github.com/nscaledev/fleet-manager/blob/main/README.md) ### Helm Kubernetes packaging tool used by the hub and satellite charts. Best source: [Helm documentation](https://helm.sh/docs/) ### Host See [Node](#node). ### HPL High Performance Linpack; benchmark used to stress CPU/GPU compute performance. Best source: [Build a new burn-in test](../developer-guide/authoring-guides/build-a-new-burn-in-test) ### HTTP Boot Boot patterns used by Ironic/BMC workflows to boot provisioning or cleaning images. HTTP boot fetches the image over the network; virtual media has the BMC present it as an attached device. Best source: [OpenStack Ironic documentation](https://docs.openstack.org/ironic/latest/) ### HyperDeploy Operating model for repeatable GPU infrastructure delivery at scale. Best source: [HyperDeploy lifecycle](https://app.notion.com/p/nscalecloud/HyperDeploy-lifecycle-36dcaf6bfadc819fa87fec84fbae475c) ### IB See [InfiniBand](#infiniband). ### In-band Network path through the host operating system or service network rather than the BMC management path. Best source: [Deploy Fleet Manager at a new site](../deployment-guide/new-site-deployment/deploy-fleet-manager-at-a-new-site) ### InfiniBand Low-latency, high-throughput fabric commonly used for large-scale GPU training clusters. Often abbreviated **IB**. Best source: [NVIDIA InfiniBand](https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/networking/products/infiniband/) ### IPMI Older management protocol used with BMCs; still encountered in server operations and validation tooling. Best source: [Intel IPMI specification](https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/docs/servers/ipmi/ipmi-home.html) ### IPv6 Internet Protocol version used in newer provisioning designs, including IPv6-only Ironic/Kea blueprints. Best source: [RFC 8200](https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8200) ### Ironic OpenStack bare-metal service that enrolls, controls, cleans, and provisions physical nodes. Best source: [OpenStack Ironic documentation](https://docs.openstack.org/ironic/latest/) ### Ironic Python Agent Agent ramdisk (abbreviated **IPA**) used by Ironic clean/inspection steps; Fleet Manager docs include the image update runbook. Best source: [IPA image update runbook](https://github.com/nscaledev/fleet-manager/blob/main/docs/runbooks/ipa-image-update.md) ### Kusto Analytics database, also known as Azure Data Explorer. The customer-facing "Matrix" inventory databases live in it, written by the matrix connector. Best source: [Azure Data Explorer documentation](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-explorer/) ### NATS Messaging system used by Radar ingestion and connector/event work. Best source: [NATS documentation](https://docs.nats.io/) ### NCCL NVIDIA collective communication library used by distributed GPU workloads and network/GPU validation tests. Best source: [NCCL documentation](https://docs.nvidia.com/deeplearning/nccl/index.html) ### NetBox Source-of-truth DCIM/IPAM system for sites, racks, devices, roles, types, interfaces, and cabling. Best source: [NetBox documentation](https://netboxlabs.com/docs/netbox/) ### Node A physical machine in the fleet. Code usually says Device; operators often say node or host. Best source: [`src/fleet_manager/api/core/models.py`](https://github.com/nscaledev/fleet-manager/blob/main/src/fleet_manager/api/core/models.py) ### Nova OpenStack compute service; Fleet Manager checks it when nodes are deployed or attached to instances. Best source: [OpenStack Nova documentation](https://docs.openstack.org/nova/latest/) ### NVLink High-bandwidth GPU-to-GPU interconnect and switching fabric used in dense NVIDIA systems. Best source: [NVIDIA NVLink](https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/data-center/nvlink/) ### NVSwitch See [NVLink](#nvlink). ### OOB Out-of-band management network, usually for BMC access independent of host OS networking. Best source: [Deploy Fleet Manager at a new site](../deployment-guide/new-site-deployment/deploy-fleet-manager-at-a-new-site) ### Placement OpenStack service that tracks resource providers, inventories, and traits such as customer readiness. Best source: [OpenStack Placement documentation](https://docs.openstack.org/placement/latest/) ### pre-commit Local and CI hook runner for Ruff, formatting, ty, OpenAPI generation, Pyright, Bandit, and Prettier. Best source: [pre-commit documentation](https://pre-commit.com/) ### Radar API Customer-facing visibility layer for fleet availability, repair, telemetry, and maintenance signals. Usually just called Radar. Best source: [Relationship: Radar](../relationships/radar) ### RDMA Remote Direct Memory Access; high-speed network capability critical for distributed GPU training. Best source: [InfiniBand Trade Association](https://www.infinibandta.org/) ### Reclaim Taking a node back from customer use so Fleet Manager can quarantine, validate, remediate, or re-release it. Best source: [Workflows reference](../operator-guide/workflows-reference) ### Redfish Modern REST-style DMTF standard for managing servers through the BMC. Best source: [DMTF Redfish standard](https://www.dmtf.org/standards/redfish) ### SLA Service Level Agreement; the service promise made to a customer. Best source: [Google SRE: service level objectives](https://sre.google/sre-book/service-level-objectives/) ### SLO Service Level Objective; the internal reliability target a team works to. Fleet Manager helps by reducing fault and repair ambiguity. Best source: [Google SRE: service level objectives](https://sre.google/sre-book/service-level-objectives/) ### SLURM HPC workload manager (also written **Slurm**) used here for burn-in tests and managed training-style workloads. Best source: [SLURM overview](https://slurm.schedmd.com/overview.html) ### Teleport Infrastructure access path used to reach app hosts and dev environments. Best source: [Developer guide overview](../developer-guide/overview) ### Temporal Durable workflow engine used for long-running hardware operations that need retries, heartbeats, and recovery. Best source: [Temporal documentation](https://docs.temporal.io/temporal) ### Tenant Customer or internal owner context for devices and allocations. Best source: [Tenants and allocations](../operator-guide/tenants-and-allocations) ### ToR Top-of-rack switch connecting servers in a rack to the data-center fabric. Best source: [NetBox data requirements](../operator-guide/netbox-data-requirements) ### uv Python dependency and execution tool used for all Python commands in this repo. Best source: [uv documentation](https://docs.astral.sh/uv/) ### Vault Secret system used in chart/runtime integrations such as Radar ingestion product approle secrets. Best source: [HashiCorp Vault documentation](https://developer.hashicorp.com/vault/docs) ### Virtual media See [HTTP Boot](#http-boot). ### VLAN Layer-2 segmentation tag; nodes may be moved between testing, customer, quarantine, or provisioning networks. Best source: [NetBox data requirements](../operator-guide/netbox-data-requirements) ### VRF Routing table isolation; used when provisioning networks must be separated from customer or management paths. Best source: [Workflows reference](../operator-guide/workflows-reference) This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.