Glossary

Single-Tenancy Environment

What is a single-tenancy environment in cloud computing?


A single-tenancy environment, also known as dedicated hosting or a dedicated instance, refers to a situation where each user or tenant has their own dedicated infrastructure and resources, including servers, storage and network components. These resources aren’t shared with any other users, maximizing performance and control.

What is a single-tenancy environment in cloud computing?


A single-tenancy environment, also known as dedicated hosting or a dedicated instance, refers to a situation where each user or tenant has their own dedicated infrastructure and resources, including servers, storage and network components. These resources aren’t shared with any other users, maximizing performance and control.

Related Definitions

SaaS Sprawl

What is SaaS sprawl?


SaaS sprawl, also known as software sprawl, occurs when an organization’s SaaS stack consists of a large — and often unmanageable — number of applications.


Ultimately, as business needs grow, the number of digital tools required increases, which leads to new applications being subscribed to, be this through a centralized process or at the will of individual employees.

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Overages

What are overages in SaaS?


In SaaS, overages refer to the additional costs or fees that are incurred when a user exceeds the contracted usage limits or terms of their plan. Examples of overages include user overages, storage overages, API usage overages, feature overages and support overages.

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Master Service Agreement (MSA)

What is a Master Service Agreement?


A Master Service Agreement (MSA) is a contract between two parties, in this case the software provider and the buyer, outlining the terms and conditions of the agreement. It will typically cover pricing, payment terms, service levels, intellectual property rights, confidentiality, liability, termination, and dispute resolution.


Unlike a service level agreement (SLA) which outlines the specific performance metrics and criteria for the delivery of a particular service, for example uptime guarantees and support response times, an MSA covers the broader terms of the business relationship.

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Cloud Instances

What is an instance in the context of cloud computing?


In cloud computing, an instance refers to a virtual server provided by a third-party cloud service, for example AWS, Azure or Google Cloud. These instances ultimately enable companies to deploy and run their applications or services in the cloud, in a scalable and flexible manner. This is because instances are on-demand and can be adjusted based on your workload requirements.

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Auto-Renewal

What is an auto-renewal clause?

Auto-renewal is a term often used in SaaS agreements referring to the automatic renewal of a user’s subscription plan at the end of their contract term. These auto-renewal clauses will automatically extend the user’s subscription for another period, typically the same duration as the initial term, unless the customer explicitly cancels or modifies their subscription by a specified date. This is often referred to as a termination window and is typically either 30, 60 or 90 days prior to the renewal date.

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SaaS Agreement

What is a SaaS agreement?


A SaaS agreement, or contract, details the terms of your purchase from a SaaS vendor.

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