Terms and Definitions

Term	Definition
ActivePlatform	А software platform that automates a selling process of Cloud Services. ActivePlatform consists of the Customer Control Panel and Operator Control Panel.
Operator Control Panel	A component of ActivePlatform that automates Operator's business process for providing and billing Services.
Customer Control Panel	A component of ActivePlatform that automates Customer's business process while consuming Services.
Service (Cloud service)	A service, an IT solution, or an application that is delivered and consumed via the Internet (SaaS, IaaS, PaaS).
Operator (Provider)	An organisation that provides access to the Services for the Customers.
Reseller	A company or individual that purchases provider's services and sales it to the Customers. Moreover, Reseller can provide own services and be a provider for the Customers.
Account	А counterparty (natural person or legal entity), which is used to pay for the Services. The Account keeps tracking information about a profile, billing history, purchases, etc. The Customer can have an unlimited number of Accounts.
Account Class	An Account Class is a certain group of billing rules, which are applied to each Customer that is included in this class. The division into classes allows to categorise all customers in accordance with certain terms and conditions of service. For example, you can create a group of VIP-accounts, defining preferred terms of service.
User	A User is a person who uses the Customer Control Panel to access the Services. An unlimited number of Users can be connected to a single Account. Each of registered User is granted one of the following access levels: Owner, Admin, User. Each User can be connected to an unlimited number of Accounts.
Manager	A separate category of Users which is used by Operator's employees. This type of user has access to the Operator Control Panel.
Manager Role	A certain access level to the Operator Control Panel, which is set for each Manager: Salesperson; Marketing; Product owner; System administrator.
Subscription	An agreement between an Operator (Reseller) and a Customer. The Subscription keeps information about the Plan, personal and billing contacts, technical and service provisioning terms. The Subscription is associated with the Account. Existing Subscriptions can be changed.
Plan	A pack of Services and Resources with a fixed price.
Service term	A pack of additional rules of the Service (for example, grace period, stop period of subscription, availability for payment by guaranteed payments).
Plan period	A period of use of the Service that is available as part of the chosen Plan.
Plan category	A group of Plans, which is united by some criteria, e.g. "Cloud Hosting", "Domain Registration" etc. This option is used for internal needs and does not affect the properties of Plans.
Resources	Any hardware or software components which are included in the Subscription (traffic, domains, disk space, etc.).
Application Template	A template that is used to create the application instance for the customer. The Application Template is created on the basis of the Plugin or APS package.
Plugin	A pluggable module that expands the functionality of ActivePlatform.
Application packaging standard (APS)	ActivePlatform makes it easy to expand the range of provided services with the help of APS (Application packaging standard). APS is the most popular open standard for cloud services. It creates a simple and fast way for cloud service providers to offer new services. You can learn more about APS on the official website http://www.apsstandard.org/learn/how.
APS-package	APS package contains the integration components of the application, but not the application itself.
Account Balance	Displays the availability of funds, which can be used to pay for new Services or upgrade the current ones.
Payment	An operation that represents a cash inflow on the Account balance. Money can be paid by different payment method: cash, credit card, bank transfer etc.
Payment Method	A way of paying for an Order or Topping up of an Account Balance, which is implemented using special Plugins. The Payment method requires configuring the connection to the payment system (for online payments) or displaying a page with the instructions and an ability to download the bill (for non-cash payment).
Guaranteed Payment	An operation that represents a "virtual" money inflow on the Account balance. Customer must perform real payment operation during the fixed period.
Charge	An operation of reducing funds on an Account Balance after a new Subscription was ordered or an existing Subscription was renewed or updated.
Correction	A manual operation of changing an Account Balance which is performed by a Manager.
Invoice	A financial document that includes closed Charges. Invoice is generated on Billing day.
Transactions	An operation that displays the flow of funds on the Account Balance.
Discount	A reduction in the price of the Plan for the Customer.
Order	A request to buy a new Subscriptions or change an existing one.
Domain Name System (DNS)	A hierarchical distributed naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participating entities.
Domain Name	An element of domain name system (DNS) which indicates the IP address of a computer or a website. All computers sharing a common part of an IP address are in the same domain.
Top-level domain (TLD)	One of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System (DNS). The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the namespace. For all domains in lower levels, it is the last part of the domain name that is, the last label of a fully qualified domain name. For example, in the domain name www.example.com, the top-level domain is com.
External domain	A domain that was registered by Domain Registrar and was added to the ActivePlatform to manage DNS.
DNS record	A basic data element in the domain name system. Each record has a type (A, MX, etc.), an expiration time limit, a class, and some type-specific data.
Domain Registrar	A Domain Registrar is used for connecting ActivePlatform with the domain registrar. Domain registration is performed via a set of Plugins that allow creating the connection between ActivePlatform and Domain Registrars.
Vendor	А company that supplies Services under its own popular trademark.
License	A permission to sell the Service that is provided by the Vendor. The License may cover whole Plan or one Plan Resource.
Certificate	SSL certificate (Secure Sockets Layer protocol) provides secure, encrypted communications between a website and an internet browser.
Certificate Vendor	An organisation that supplies SSL certificates.
Notifications	A message that is used to notify customers and employees if the certain event has occurred in the ActivePlatform.
Notification Category	A category that is used for grouping Notifications by some criteria, e.g. "Internal ", "Renewal and Expiration Notices" etc. This option is used for internal needs and does not affect the properties of the Notifications.
Event handler	An entity that sends Notifications in response to a specific event.
Notification Template	All notifications are based on the special Templates. In the Template, all specific information (such as customer address, order details, subscription status etc.) can be replaced using Placeholders.
Placeholder	An entity that automatically displays specific information. Placeholders allow to extract information from the database and put into a notification message. Each type of notification has its own set of placeholders, which aren't available to other types.
Microsoft CSP	Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) is a distribution program of Microsoft cloud products.