# Glossary (/reference/glossary)

Definitions of the terms used across Databaas.

| Term | Definition |
| ---- | ---------- |
| **Application** | A machine identity, such as the one a pipeline runs as. It appears as **Application** in the catalog's permissions picker and is granted data like a person. See [data permissions](/catalog/data-permissions). |
| **Airflow** | [Apache Airflow](https://airflow.apache.org/), the scheduler behind ingestion pipelines; a pipeline is an Airflow DAG and [Pipelines](/pipelines/monitoring) is its web UI. |
| **Capability (feature permission)** | One of the five platform-wide permissions deciding which features you can open, such as `can_use_notebooks`; the feature checks the capability, not the display name. See [permissions reference](/access/permissions-reference). |
| **Catalog / Data Catalog** | The **Data Catalog** is the portal screen for [browsing](/catalog/browsing) warehouses, namespaces and tables; "catalog" also means the underlying registry (Lakekeeper) every engine asks before reading data. |
| **Catalog Admin** | Lakekeeper's own administration interface for warehouses and permissions, in the portal's **Administration** group. |
| **DAG** | Airflow's name for a pipeline: a set of tasks with an order between them. See [monitoring pipelines](/pipelines/monitoring). |
| **Data grant / data permission** | A grant on a warehouse, namespace or table that lets your queries read it, separate from feature permissions. See [data permissions](/catalog/data-permissions). |
| **databaas-utils** | The helper library for reading and writing the lakehouse: as your own identity in a notebook (see [querying data](/notebooks/querying-data)), or as a pipeline's identity in a task (see [authoring pipelines](/pipelines/authoring)). Full reference in the [databaas-utils docs](https://wolkwork.github.io/databaas-utils/). |
| **dbt** | A SQL transformation framework; in Databaas it runs inside a pipeline against Trino. See [dlt and dbt](/pipelines/dlt-and-dbt). |
| **dlt** | A Python extract-and-load library, used inside a pipeline task to pull data from an external source. See the [dlt documentation](https://dlthub.com/docs). |
| **DuckDB** | An in-process SQL engine that runs inside your [notebook session](/notebooks/querying-data) over data you have pulled into it. See the [DuckDB documentation](https://duckdb.org/docs/). |
| **Engine** | Whatever actually runs a query: the catalog preview, DuckDB in a notebook, or Trino. See [query engines](/dashboards/query-engines). |
| **Generic table** | A catalog entry that is registered but not Iceberg, such as a Zarr array or a set of files, with no snapshots, schema or preview. See [table details](/catalog/table-details). |
| **Iceberg table** | A table in the [Apache Iceberg](https://iceberg.apache.org/) format — data files plus metadata tracking schema and snapshots — the default table type in Databaas. See [Iceberg tables](/catalog/iceberg). |
| **JupyterHub** | The service giving each user a private notebook server, started when you open Notebooks. See [notebook sessions](/notebooks/sessions). |
| **Lakehouse** | Storage priced like a data lake with the behaviour of database tables — the Databaas data layer. See [core concepts](/getting-started/concepts). |
| **Lakekeeper** | The Iceberg REST catalog Databaas runs — the registry every engine asks before reading data. |
| **marimo** | A reactive Python notebook available in every notebook session, alongside Jupyter. See the [marimo documentation](https://docs.marimo.io/). |
| **Managed access** | A switch on a warehouse or namespace that stops owners below it from handing out grants; only **Manage grants** can. See [data permissions](/catalog/data-permissions#what-cascades-and-what-does-not). |
| **Namespace** | A group of tables inside a warehouse, like a schema; namespaces nest and are written with dots, as in `sales.eu.raw`. See [core concepts](/getting-started/concepts). |
| **Notebook session** | Your private notebook server, whose home persists across restarts. See [notebook sessions](/notebooks/sessions). |
| **Portal** | The front door at `https://<your-databaas-domain>`: launcher, Data Catalog, ⌘K search and admin screens, through which every other feature is reached. See the [portal tour](/getting-started/portal-tour). |
| **pyiceberg** | The Python library that talks to the catalog and loads Iceberg tables into a notebook; `get_catalog()` returns one scoped to your grants. See [querying data](/notebooks/querying-data). |
| **Role** | Two unrelated things: a **portal role** bundles the five feature permissions and is assigned to people ([roles](/access/permissions-reference#roles)); a **catalog role** is a named group you grant data access to ([catalog roles](/catalog/data-permissions#catalog-roles)). |
| **Single sign-on (SSO)** | One Databaas identity that every feature trusts, so you sign in once and your identity travels with your queries. See [quickstart](/getting-started/quickstart). |
| **Snapshot** | A complete, consistent version of an Iceberg table at one moment; every write creates a new one and older ones are kept. See [Iceberg tables](/catalog/iceberg). |
| **SQL Lab** | The SQL query editor inside Superset, running over Trino. See [SQL Lab](/dashboards/sql-lab). |
| **Superset** | The [dashboard and SQL tool](https://superset.apache.org/); a door, not a filter — everyone who can open it sees the same charts, but each query runs as the person who opened it. See [building dashboards](/dashboards/building-dashboards). |
| **Table** | A set of rows and columns registered in the catalog, addressed by warehouse, namespace and name; most are Iceberg, some generic. See [core concepts](/getting-started/concepts). |
| **Time travel** | Reading an Iceberg table as it was at an earlier snapshot instead of as it is now. See [snapshots and time travel](/catalog/iceberg#snapshots-and-time-travel). |
| **Trino** | The shared, scale-out [SQL engine](https://trino.io/docs/current/) that runs a query next to the data and returns only the result, behind SQL Lab and Superset charts. See [query engines](/dashboards/query-engines). |
| **Trino catalog `iceberg`** | The name in front of the namespace in fully qualified SQL: `iceberg.<namespace>.<table>`. |
| **Warehouse** | The top-level catalog container: a named storage area holding namespaces and tables, and the first level at which data access is granted. See [browsing the catalog](/catalog/browsing). |
| **Zitadel** | The single sign-on and identity service behind Databaas; administrators manage accounts through **Identity** in the portal. |
| **Zarr** | An open format for chunked, n-dimensional arrays, such as forecast fields and rasters. Databaas stores Zarr arrays as generic tables. See [files, blobs and Zarr arrays](/notebooks/files-and-arrays). |