What is the term used to describe storage that does not persist after a virtual machine shutdown?

The term used to describe storage that does not persist after a virtual machine shutdown is "ephemeral." This type of storage is often used in cloud environments where temporary data or state information is needed, such as for instances that are created and terminated quickly.

Ephemeral storage can be effective for tasks such as testing and development, where data doesn't need to be saved after the session ends. In cloud computing, instances can often have ephemeral storage allocated, which is entirely reliant on the lifecycle of the virtual machine. When the machine is shut down or terminated, any data stored in this type of storage is lost. This characteristic distinguishes ephemeral storage from persistent storage, which retains its data across reboots or when a virtual machine is stopped and started again.

Understanding the nature of ephemeral storage is crucial for cloud architecture design because it informs decisions about how and where data is stored in relation to the operational requirements of applications and services.