Terminology

991 terms, tools, patterns and metrics an architect is expected to use precisely. Each one gets a short explanation of what it is, and — where it matters — what it is commonly confused with. Search filters as you type; the column headers sort.

All areas991 Architecture Fundamentals38 Distributed Systems73 Data Architecture71 Cloud Architecture55 Networking51 API & Integration Architecture45 Reliability & Resilience40 Observability33 Performance & Capacity Engineering34 Security Architecture50 Cost Architecture & FinOps30 Business Architecture28 Architecture Communication27 Enterprise Architecture27 Legacy Modernization27 AI-Era Architecture34 Software Architecture & Engineering37 Architecture Patterns34 Architecture Decision-Making30 The Architect's Meta-Skills27 Delivery & Release Engineering20 Platform Engineering & Developer Experience20 Testing & Quality Architecture20 Data Platform Architecture20 Streaming & Real-Time Data20 Data Governance & Semantics20 Frontend & Experience Architecture20 Edge, Mobile & IoT20 Regulatory & Data Protection Architecture20 Assurance, Audit & Model Risk20

Kind Any concept379 practice294 pattern166 metric55 tool36 protocol35 case-study26

7 terms shown.

Term	Kind	Topic	What it is
Data Product Interface	concept	Data Products	The stable surface a data product exposes — its schema, its access path, its documentation and its guarantees — as distinct from the pipeline behind it.
Decision Rights Over Data	concept	Data Governance & Semantics	Who is entitled to decide what a data element means, who may see it and how long it is kept — the substance of governance once the policy documents are set aside.
Domain Data Ownership	concept	Data Mesh	Making the team that generates data accountable for publishing it fit for others to use, rather than handing raw extracts to a central team.
Golden Record	concept	Master Data Management	The single authoritative version of an entity assembled from conflicting sources, and the survivorship rules that decide which value wins.
Governed Self-Service	concept	Self-Service vs Governed	Letting anyone analyse anything while constraining what may be treated as authoritative, which resolves the apparent conflict between speed and consistency.
Producer Obligation	concept	Data Contracts	What a data contract binds the producing team to do, and — crucially — what happens in their pipeline when they are about to break it.
Sensitivity Propagation	concept	Sensitivity Labelling	The rule that a derived dataset inherits the highest sensitivity of its inputs unless a named transformation demonstrably lowers it.