Heat is an OpenStack template-based orchestration service that allows users to describe infrastructure and applications in text files called Heat Orchestration Templates (HOT) and automate the deployment of multi-component, multi-tier applications across OpenStack and other platforms. Heat provides the ability to define infrastructure resources like servers, networks, routers, and security groups and specify relationships between resources. It comprises several Python applications that work together to provision and manage OpenStack resources through a REST API according to the templates.