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In tech, we love acronyms, but not all of them are worth remembering. Here are 5 we think you should know.

Iot, MSP, SDN, ACI, IaaSNavigating the world of IT terminology can be an exercise in annoyance but there is a method to the madness. We appreciate the way CIO Online described the reasoning behind acronym use within tech in this article from 2010:

“Is it any surprise that acronyms have taken over our lives? They fit perfectly in our fast-paced, multi-tasking society. Why say something in words if you can say it in letters?”

So, with the near constant proliferation of technology-related acronyms flooding our lives, which ones are worth knowing? We took an informal poll at iConvergence to determine the 5 essential tech acronyms businesses in Louisiana need to know today, and here is where we landed.

IoT-The Internet of Things
IoT is the one term on this list you’ve most likely heard before. Even if you haven’t, the IoT is probably impacting something within your reach right now. To put it simply, the IoT is a network of online, connected and ‘smart’ devices. As Network World describes it:

“The Internet of Things, at its simplest level, is smart-devices—from refrigerators that warn you when you’re out of milk to industrial sensors—that are connected to the Internet so they can share data.”

The Internet of Things is a revolution in the world of technology and represents a seismic shift in the way we interact with our devices and the world around us. The importance of this acronym to folks outside of tech is just beginning to be understood and with over 13 billion connected devices in-use worldwide today, and another 30 billion expected to be connected within the next three years, in the near future, the term ‘IoT’ will be as commonplace as smartphone or Wi-Fi.

SDN-Software Defined Networking
SDN or Software Defined Networking is a term like IoT, that’s seeing widespread use in today’s tech circles. SDN was popularized by a relatively small group of early adopters and has now emerged as a mainstream component of the modern network. It represents a departure from traditional networking and is an architecture approach that encompasses several variations of network technologies with the goal of making the network as “agile and flexible as the virtualized server and storage infrastructure of the modern data center.” [Tech Target] Using an SDN system has a ton of benefits including increased network management flexibility and being able to easily implement security policies.

ACI-Application-Centric Infrastructure
Application-Centric Infrastructure or ACI is a solution that emerged from the minds at Cisco following their acquisition of Insieme, and is a policy-driven solution that integrates software and hardware to help accelerate business agility. Many folks view ACI as Cisco’s SDN offering for data center and cloud networks.

“Cisco ACI helps customers manage and excel in complex environments by increasing operational efficiencies, delivering network automation, and improving security for any combination of on-premises data centers, private, and public clouds. With ACI, customers can increase business agility through network optimization, business protection and cloud enablement.”—Cisco

This all sounds complicated but Cisco’s goal has always been to streamline and simplify technologies and ACI lives up to that vision.

laaSIaaS-Infrastructure-as-a-Service
IaaS, Infrastructure-as-a-Service, lives in the growing family of tech acronyms ending in ‘as-a-Service’ or ‘aaS’ (ex: SaaS, PaaS, DRaaS, UCaaS). It’s a method of cloud computing that allows for an infrastructure to be managed and provisioned over the Internet. In the IaaS model, a cloud provider hosts the components of IT infrastructure that would typically be found within an on-premises data center. This includes servers, storage and networking hardware as well as the virtualization layer. Businesses in Louisiana have come to love IaaS because it’s easier, faster and most importantly, saves money, and who doesn’t love that?

It’s pretty easy to laugh at all the ‘aaS’ talk coming out of the tech space over the last few years but we swear it’s a serious topic with real-world benefits and results.

MSP-Managed Services Provider
This is one of the tech acronym’s we love the most. Let’s pause and give you a moment to guess why.

(Insert Jeopardy theme music here)

Times up.

If you guessed it’s because we are an MSP or Managed Services Provider, you’d be 100% correct. We love this acronym because we enjoy being able to take the dirty work of managing IT services off the plates of our hard-working customers and friends. We wrote about it in a blog post earlier this year.

MSP’s handle everything from cybersecurity and data center environments, to mission-critical applications and data storage, as well as data backup and recovery.  We take care of nearly all of your IT needs so you don’t have to. It’s a simple as that.

With the passage of time, the list of tech acronyms continues to grow. While most will pass into the fabric of our aging minds, we think the 5 listed above will have some relative longevity. As one of the region’s top managed IT service providers, we pledge to stay on top of the latest need-to-know tech terms and acronyms… so you don’t have to.

What would be on your list of the top 5 need-to-know tech acronyms?