|Manuals

Provider Concepts Map

This reference maps the provider-specific terminology used in the Cloud Manager Quick Start and configuration screens to the equivalent concepts in each supported provider. It is a translation layer, not a tutorial. If you are configuring Cloud Manager with a provider other than Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) — the example used throughout the Quick Start — use this article to identify which field, parameter, or concept in your provider corresponds to the OCI term you are reading about.

The map is grouped by configuration stage rather than presented as a single flat table. Within each stage, the OCI column is the anchor (because it matches the language used elsewhere in the manual), and the other supported providers are mapped against it. Hypervisors are covered in a separate section because their conceptual model differs meaningfully from cloud providers.

How to Use This Article

When you encounter an OCI-specific term while configuring Cloud Manager for a different provider, locate the term in the OCI column of the relevant section. The same row gives you the equivalent concept name in your provider’s vocabulary. Where the equivalent does not exist or is significantly different, the cell is marked accordingly with a brief note.

This article does not document the full configuration workflow for every provider — only the conceptual mapping. For provider-specific setup guides, see the Setup chapter.

Cloud Providers

Identity and Authentication

This is what Cloud Manager needs to authenticate against the provider’s API and act on the customer’s account.

Concept OCI AWS Azure GCP IONOS Cloud
Tenant or account identifier Tenancy OCID AWS Account ID Tenant ID (directory) Project ID Contract ID
User or principal identifier User OCID IAM User ARN App Registration (Object ID) Service Account email API Username
Authentication credential API Key (.pem private key + Fingerprint) Access Key ID + Secret Access Key Service Principal (Subscription ID + Tenant ID + Client ID + Client Secret) Service Account JSON Key API token (with optional Username + Password as fallback)
Region or location Region (e.g., us-ashburn-1) Region (e.g., us-east-1) Location (e.g., eastus) Region (e.g., us-central1) Data Center location
Logical resource container Compartment (uses tags + IAM scoping; no direct equivalent) Resource Group (uses Project; no sub-container) Virtual Data Center (VDC)

Notes:

  • AWS does not have a direct equivalent to OCI’s Compartment. AWS organizes resources by tags and IAM policies rather than by container. When the Cloud Manager UI asks for a Compartment OCID and the provider is AWS, the equivalent input is typically a region plus an IAM scope.
  • Azure Resource Groups and OCI Compartments are conceptually similar — both are logical containers for related resources — but Resource Groups in Azure are more lightweight and frequently used.
  • GCP uses the Project as both the tenant boundary and the resource container; there is no separate “compartment” layer.
  • IONOS Cloud uses the Virtual Data Center (VDC) as the top-level container — a single VDC contains all servers, storage, and networking for a deployment.

Compute Resources (Virtual Machines)

Concept OCI AWS Azure GCP IONOS Cloud
Compute service name Compute EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) Virtual Machines Compute Engine Compute Engine
Virtual machine instance Compute Instance EC2 Instance Virtual Machine (VM) VM Instance Server (Dedicated Core, vCPU, or Cube)
VM template or sizing Shape (e.g., VM.Standard.E4.Flex) Instance Type (e.g., t3.large) VM Size (e.g., Standard_D4s_v3) Machine Type (e.g., n2-standard-4) Server type + manual CPU/RAM allocation
Boot image identifier OS Image OCID AMI ID (Amazon Machine Image) Image ID or URN Image (URI or family reference) Image ID (custom or IONOS-provided)
Storage volume Block Volume / Boot Volume EBS Volume Managed Disk Persistent Disk Block Storage (HDD or SSD)
Availability isolation Availability Domain Availability Zone Availability Zone Zone Availability Zone

Notes:

  • OCI Shape and the equivalent concepts in AWS, Azure, and GCP all denote a pre-defined CPU/RAM/storage configuration. OCI’s “Flex” shapes (and AWS’s *.metal and similar) allow custom CPU and memory ratios.
  • IONOS Cloud does not use named “instance types.” Instead, you specify CPU cores, RAM, and storage individually when creating a Server. This makes the IONOS row look thinner in the table, but the underlying concept (a sized virtual machine) is the same.
  • All five providers use a similar “image” concept for the bootable OS template, though the identifier format differs.

Networking

Concept OCI AWS Azure GCP IONOS Cloud
Virtual private network Virtual Cloud Network (VCN) VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) Virtual Network (VNet) VPC Network Virtual Data Center networking (LAN)
Subnet Subnet (with OCID) Subnet (with ID) Subnet Subnetwork LAN (private or public)
Public IP assignment Public IP (ephemeral or reserved) Elastic IP Public IP Address External IP Public IP (static or dynamic)
Firewall layer Security List + Network Security Group (NSG) Security Group + Network ACL Network Security Group (NSG) Firewall Rule Firewall Rules (per-NIC)
Network interface VNIC (Virtual Network Interface Card) ENI (Elastic Network Interface) NIC Network Interface NIC

Notes:

  • The “VPC equivalent” concept is consistent across all five providers — a private network in which VMs are placed and isolated from other tenants. Only the name differs.
  • OCI has both Security Lists (subnet-scoped) and Network Security Groups (resource-scoped). When configuring inbound rules, Cloud Manager typically targets the NSG attached to the instance’s VNIC.
  • IONOS Cloud’s networking model is somewhat unique: networking is configured visually in the Data Center Designer (DCD) by drawing connections between Server and LAN elements. The conceptual equivalents still hold, but the configuration experience differs.

Provisioning and Lifecycle

Concept OCI AWS Azure GCP IONOS Cloud
Instance provisioning trigger Launch Instance RunInstances Create VM Create Instance Provision Server
Power on/off control Start / Stop Instance Start / Stop Instance Start / Deallocate VM Start / Stop Instance Power On / Power Off
Instance lifecycle states Running, Stopped, Terminated Running, Stopped, Terminated Running, Stopped, Deallocated Running, Stopped, Terminated Running, Stopped, Deleted
Permanent deletion Terminate Instance Terminate Instance Delete VM Delete Instance Delete Server

Notes:

  • “Stopped” is treated slightly differently across providers in terms of billing. OCI and GCP continue to charge for storage but not compute on stopped instances. AWS also continues storage billing while stopped. Azure distinguishes between “Stopped” (still allocated, still billed for compute) and “Deallocated” (no compute charges) — this is a common source of unexpected charges. Cloud Manager’s power-off operations generally map to the deallocated-equivalent state.

Hypervisors

Hypervisors do not have the same identity, region, or container concepts as cloud providers. They run on customer-managed hardware, so the relevant concepts are clusters, hosts, datastores, and networks rather than tenancy, regions, and compartments. The mapping below covers the concepts that do have parallels with cloud providers.

Concept VMware (vSphere / ESXi) Microsoft Hyper-V Proxmox VE Oracle KVM (oVirt / OLVM) Verge.IO (VergeOS)
Authentication vCenter user + password Windows account that is a member of the Hyper-V Administrators group on the host (no SCVMM dependency) Proxmox user credentials (pm_user + pm_password) oVirt Engine URL + username + password (optional CA bundle for TLS) Username + Password (Basic Auth) or OIDC (Client Credentials Flow with Issuer URL + Client ID + Client Secret)
Resource grouping Datacenter > Cluster Host Group (in SCVMM) or standalone host Cluster (in clustered setup) Datacenter > Cluster Cluster + Tenant (multi-tenancy)
Logical isolation Resource Pool, Folder (limited; uses host or cluster) Resource Pool (uses Datacenter / Cluster scoping) Tenant (full isolation)
Compute host ESXi Host Hyper-V Host Proxmox Node Host (KVM) Node
VM template / sizing VM Template + manual CPU/RAM allocation VM Template + manual allocation VM Template + manual allocation oVirt Template + manual allocation VM Template + manual allocation
Boot image OVF/OVA Template, ISO VHD/VHDX Image, ISO Disk Image, ISO oVirt Disk Image, ISO Media Image, ISO
Storage Datastore Storage Spaces, SMB/iSCSI Share Storage (LVM, ZFS, NFS, etc.) Storage Domain vSAN (integrated)
Network vSwitch (Standard or Distributed) + Port Group Virtual Switch Linux Bridge or OVS Bridge vNIC Profile + Logical Network Internal Network, Virtual Switch Port
Multi-tenancy (limited; uses RBAC and folders) (limited; not native) (uses RBAC) (uses RBAC and Datacenters) Tenant (native, first-class)

Notes:

  • Hypervisors generally do not have a “region” or “availability zone” concept. The equivalent failure-isolation mechanism is host-level redundancy within a cluster, configured per cluster.

  • Verge.IO is the most cloud-like of the supported hypervisors thanks to its native multi-tenancy model. Tenants in VergeOS provide the same kind of isolation that Compartments (OCI) or Resource Groups (Azure) provide on cloud providers.

  • VMware, Hyper-V, Proxmox VE, and Oracle KVM typically require a more manual sizing approach than cloud providers. Instead of selecting a Shape or Instance Type, you specify CPU cores, RAM, disk, and network attachments individually when creating each VM.

  • Kubernetes is intentionally not included in this map. Kubernetes models do not provision VMs and do not share the IaaS concepts above — pods are scheduled by the cluster from a YAML configuration. See Managed VMs vs. VDI/DaaS Models vs. Kubernetes.

A Note on Terminology Drift

Cloud providers update product names regularly. Some of the names in this map may be superseded by the time you read it. Examples of recent or ongoing name changes:

  • Microsoft Azure has renamed Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) to Microsoft Entra ID. Older documentation may use either name interchangeably.
  • Google Cloud Platform (GCP) has rebranded G Suite admin consoles and identity services under Google Workspace and Google Cloud Identity.
  • AWS IAM continues to evolve, with IAM Identity Center (formerly AWS SSO) now the recommended pathway for many workforce identity scenarios.

When in doubt, refer to your provider’s current documentation for the canonical name. The conceptual mapping in this article is stable even when surface names change.

See Also