# Terminology The following terms are used throughout the documentation pages and should be understood in order to fully comprehend the components and inner workings of the i3D.net Game Hosting service. | Term | Description | | -------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Allocation** |

The process of allocating (reserving) a game server for players to connect to. This is normally done by a Matchmaker.
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| | **Application** |

The application you want the Platform to host. This can be a game server application, or any kind of utility you want to run alongside your game server.
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| | **Application Build** |

An element containing execution information and meta data about an Application Install.
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| | **Application Instance** |

A single deployed application build, e.g. a deployed game server, or a deployed utility.
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| | **AWS** | Amazon Web Services - we always refer to the EC2 section. | | **Bare Metal Server** |

A physical server in a data center.
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| | **Deployment Environment** |

The topmost element that encompasses all of your deployment related configurations for a hosted game.
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| | **Deployment Profile** |

The profile that defines how and where your applications are deployed.
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| | **Game Instance** | An Application Instance of type "game". See Application Instance. | | **Game Server** | An Application Instance of type "game". See Application Instance. | | **GCP** | Google Cloud Platform - we always refer to the Compute section. | | **Host** |

A machine that hosts your application instances. This can be a bare metal machine, or a virtual machine - the word Host is agnostic in this sense and simply refers to an OS in which programs can be installed and run.
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| | **Matchmaker** | A back end service run by game publishers that [allocates game servers](/game-hosting/game-integration/matchmaker-allocation.md) in the regions where game clients want to play a game or match and informs said game clients about the game server details, so they know where to connect to. | | **Patching** | This is the process of updating game servers / utilities to a new version of the software. | | **Preloading** |

To shorten deployment times during an update process, the software archive / build you want to deploy will be uploaded and extracted onto all applicable hosts, before starting the actual deployment process.
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| | **Utility Instance** | See Application Instance. | | **Virtual Machine** |

A virtualized server. Often hosted at e.g. AWS or GCP, on a large bare metal server that hosts one or more virtual machines.
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