> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.e6data.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Glossary

> Definitions of the core e6data terms used throughout the documentation and Console.

Definitions of the terms you'll see throughout the e6data docs and Console.

## Platform

**e6data** - the product: a lakehouse compute engine that runs SQL and AI workloads directly on your data lake.

**Account** - the top-level entity for your organization; billing, support, and membership are scoped to it.

**Tenant** - your organization within an account. Users belong to a tenant, and resources (workspaces, catalogs, clusters) belong to it.

**Control Plane** - the shared e6data Console where you manage your organization, workspaces, account, billing, and global access control. It doesn't process queries or touch your data.

**Compute Plane** - the per-workspace environment (opened with **Open**) that holds catalogs, clusters, the SQL Editor, and Run History. The compute that runs queries.

**Workspace** - an isolated environment for a team or project, with its own catalogs, clusters, access control, and run history.

**Workspace Type** - a workspace property with two values: **Serverless** or **In Your VPC**. See [Deployment models](/platform/deployment-models).

**Serverless** - the deployment model where e6data runs and manages the compute.

**In Your VPC** - the deployment model where the Compute Plane runs inside your own Kubernetes cluster.

**CloudPrem** - e6data's name for an In Your VPC deployment, where the Compute Plane runs in your own cloud account and Kubernetes cluster.

## Compute

**Cluster** - the compute that runs queries inside a workspace, selected by name in every connection.

**Cluster Runtime (CRT)** - the cluster's version, chosen when you create or update a cluster.

**Cluster Size** - a cluster's capacity, expressed as a size such as XS, S, or M.

**Executor** - a node that runs query work; cluster size is expressed in executor count.

**Autoscaling** - automatic adjustment of a cluster's executors between a configured minimum and maximum based on load.

**Scale-to-zero** - autoscaling with a minimum of zero executors: the cluster drops to no compute when idle and resumes on the next query.

**Auto-suspend / auto-resume** - a cluster suspends after an idle period (zero cost) and resumes automatically on the next query.

**Execution mode** - the path a query runs on: **Standard** (the full SQL surface) or **Native** (a vectorized path optimized for scan-heavy queries, with automatic fallback to Standard for unsupported features).

**Result cache** - on-cluster caching that serves repeated identical queries without re-executing them, with a configurable TTL.

## Data

**Catalog** - a connection to a metastore (Hive Metastore, AWS Glue, Databricks Unity, Microsoft Fabric, Apache Polaris, Iceberg REST, or AWS S3 Tables) that lets e6data discover databases, tables, and columns. Read-only.

**Table format** - the on-disk layout of a table that e6data reads: Apache Iceberg, Delta Lake, or Hive tables.

**Time travel** - querying a table as it existed at an earlier snapshot or version (supported for Iceberg and Delta Lake).

**Schema evolution** - changing a table's columns over time (add, drop, rename) without rewriting existing data.

**Partitioning** - physically dividing a table's data (for example, by date or region) so queries can skip irrelevant partitions, known as partition pruning.

**Metadata Service (MDS)** - the metadata catalog service, upgradeable from **Settings → Version Upgrades**.

**Platform Components** - the shared workspace infrastructure (console, routing, and related services), upgraded together as a platform release.

## Data governance

**Data governance** - access controls applied within a catalog: catalog-level access control, column masking, and row filtering.

**Catalog privilege** - a data-access grant that controls which databases, tables, rows, or columns a user can read within a specific catalog. Deny-by-default.

**Column masking** - a policy that obscures sensitive column values from users who lack explicit privilege.

**Row filtering** - a policy that restricts which rows a user can read, based on a condition.

## Identity and access

**Personal Access Token (PAT)** - an `e6pat_` token that authenticates the API as a human user.

**Service Account** - a non-human identity scoped to one workspace, authenticating with an `e6sa_` API key.

**Role** - a named set of permissions. The built-in roles are **Admin**, **Manager**, and **Viewer**; custom roles are supported.

**Role binding** - attaches a role to a user, group, or service account, optionally scoped to a specific resource.

**Group** - a named collection of users (and, on the Compute Plane, service accounts) that roles are assigned to collectively.

**SSO (single sign-on)** - signing in through an external identity provider instead of a local e6data password.

**Identity provider (IdP)** - the external system that authenticates SSO users (for example, Okta, Microsoft Entra ID, or Google).

**JIT provisioning** - just-in-time account creation on a user's first SSO sign-in, with a default role.

**Domain auto-join** - automatic organization membership for users whose email domain matches the org's configured domain.

**Support access** - scoped, audited access granted to an e6data engineer (a Support User) for support and debugging, which you can enable, audit, and revoke.

## Querying

**SQL Editor** - the in-browser console for writing and running queries.

**Run History** - the searchable log of queries run in a workspace (timing, status, user, query text).

**SQL transpiler** - translates SQL written for another dialect (Snowflake, Trino, Databricks) into e6data SQL before execution.

## Networking

**Endpoint** - the network address (host and port) that clients use to connect to a cluster.

**IP set** - a named list of IP ranges (CIDRs) that controls which clients are allowed to connect.

**TLS certificate** - secures endpoint connections. e6data manages it for Serverless; you manage it for In Your VPC.

## Connectivity and APIs

**JDBC** - standard database drivers for connecting BI tools and applications to a cluster.

**PostgreSQL protocol** - the PostgreSQL wire protocol, supported for client connections alongside JDBC and REST.

**Management API** - the REST API for organization and workspace management (workspaces, users, service accounts, version upgrades).

## Operations

**Observability export** - exporting workspace metrics, logs, and traces to an external backend using the OpenTelemetry (OTLP) standard.

## See also

* [About e6data](/query/about)


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