Definitions of terms on CloudFerro Cloud
The portal shows an account named nats1, while an application works with messages, subjects, streams, and consumers. These names refer to different parts of the setup. Recognizing the distinction helps you decide whether an action belongs in My Portal or in a NATS client.
The definitions below use the account and credentials shown in Introduction to Message Streaming on CloudFerro Cloud and the job-status example used in the later guides.
Names in My Portal
The account details page brings together the following resources and connection values:
Term |
Meaning and example |
|---|---|
Region |
The data center where the account runs. The screenshots use waw4-1. Select the region before opening the creation form; it is read-only in that form. |
NATS account |
Your isolated logical space on the shared NATS cluster, with its own users and capacity limits. The example account is nats1. |
NATS user |
An application identity used to connect to the account. Separate users let you replace or revoke one application’s access independently. |
Credentials |
The authentication material downloaded as a .creds file. The example entry is named cred1. The file can be downloaded only once. |
Endpoint |
The account’s connection address, shown as URL on the details page. Applications use this address with their credentials to connect over TLS on port 4222. |
Creating means provisioning is still in progress. Active means the account is ready for generating credentials. A credentials entry has its own state: it starts in Creating and must reach Ready to Download before its file is available.
Your My Portal sign-in authorizes portal actions according to your permissions. The NATS credentials file authenticates an application connecting to the account. The application does not inherit access from your browser session.
Names used by applications
Consider a worker publishing changes in job status for a dashboard and a reporting application:
Term |
Meaning and example |
|---|---|
Message |
The content an application sends, such as an update saying that a processing job has finished. |
Publisher |
The application sending a message. In the example, it is the processing worker. |
Subject |
The name to which messages are published. The example uses jobs.status for job-status updates. |
Stream |
A store of messages from selected subjects. The example stream JOB_STATUS retains updates published to jobs.status. |
Consumer |
The configuration that controls how an application reads stored messages from a stream. The dashboard and reporting application can have separate consumers. |
JetStream |
The NATS functionality used to retain messages in streams for consumers to read. |
Retention |
The stream settings that determine which messages remain available. Events removed by retention cannot be replayed from that stream. |
The account nats1 does not automatically contain JOB_STATUS or its consumers. My Portal creates the account and credentials; a NATS client creates and manages the streams and consumers inside it.
Quotas and capacity limits
Organization quotas limit how many accounts and credentials the organization can have. Account limits set capacity such as message size, storage, duration, and stream count. Stream retention settings determine the event history kept within those account limits.
A reporting consumer can catch up after downtime only while the events it needs remain available. A longer retention period also needs sufficient storage for the events arriving during that period.
What to do next
Use Prepare your Message Streaming account on CloudFerro Cloud to check access, select the region, and prepare the capacity settings for your first account.