How about words like "ec2 instances", "erlang processes", "haproxy", "nginx" and similar stuff that was likely involved in the incident?
If they're too embarrassed to tell what happened then they should just keep quiet. Don't insult your customers with handwavy bullshit bingo, that just leaves a sour taste in everyones mouth.
Just imagine the hilarity when the PHB asks his inhouse engineer to translate this "post-mortem" into layman's terms for him. Most bosses have a bit of humor, but not when it comes to hosting infrastructure.
Heroku had to coin some words of their own to "mask" the fact that their services are but engineering on top of the AWS stack (which isn't to belittle the effort involved).
If they're too embarrassed to tell what happened then they should just keep quiet. Don't insult your customers with handwavy bullshit bingo, that just leaves a sour taste in everyones mouth.
Just imagine the hilarity when the PHB asks his inhouse engineer to translate this "post-mortem" into layman's terms for him. Most bosses have a bit of humor, but not when it comes to hosting infrastructure.