English Reference

Word

compute instance

Definition

compound. a single virtual computer that runs on a larger server in the cloud. You can rent one to run your own software or websites without buying physical hardware.

compound. a virtual server resource provided by a cloud computing platform, representing a discrete slice of a physical host's processing power, memory, and storage. It functions as an independent virtual machine that can be launched, scaled, or terminated on demand.

Examples

“I launched a new compute instance to host my website.”

“The developer configured a high-memory compute instance to handle the heavy data processing required for the new application.”

“By distributing the workload across multiple compute instances, the architecture ensures high availability and prevents a single point of failure during peak traffic periods.”

Examples

simple

“I launched a new compute instance to host my website.”

contextual

“The developer configured a high-memory compute instance to handle the heavy data processing required for the new application.”

complex

“By distributing the workload across multiple compute instances, the architecture ensures high availability and prevents a single point of failure during peak traffic periods.”

Usage

Commonly used in cloud computing contexts (e.g., AWS, Google Cloud, Azure) to refer to a virtual machine.

Etymology

A compound formed from the verb compute, derived from the Latin computare, and instance, from the Latin instantia. In this context, the latter term follows the convention of object-oriented programming, where it denotes a concrete occurrence of an abstract template.

Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Domain

Cloud Computing

This entry

Level
C1 · Advanced
Updated

Scan code

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English Reference