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Terminology

2225 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 areas2225 Architecture Fundamentals77 Distributed Systems107 Data Architecture110 Cloud Architecture94 Networking88 API & Integration Architecture82 Reliability & Resilience75 Observability70 Performance & Capacity Engineering72 Security Architecture86 Cost Architecture & FinOps71 Business Architecture67 Architecture Communication67 Enterprise Architecture66 Legacy Modernization71 AI-Era Architecture74 Software Architecture & Engineering71 Architecture Patterns71 Architecture Decision-Making63 The Architect's Meta-Skills61 Delivery & Release Engineering66 Platform Engineering & Developer Experience70 Testing & Quality Architecture66 Data Platform Architecture69 Streaming & Real-Time Data69 Data Governance & Semantics74 Frontend & Experience Architecture66 Edge, Mobile & IoT68 Regulatory & Data Protection Architecture65 Assurance, Audit & Model Risk69
Kind Any concept801 practice736 pattern377 metric127 case-study77 tool62 protocol45

3 terms shown.

Term Kind Topic What it is
Clustering Decay Sort Order Drift, Layout Degradation concept Storage Layout & Partitioning The gradual loss of data-skipping as newly written files overlap the sort order of existing ones - so query cost rises month after month with no change to the query or the data volume.
Data Layout Partitioning and Clustering, File Organisation, Pruning Effectiveness concept Storage Layout & Partitioning How table data is physically organised into partitions and files, which determines how much can be skipped at query time - and is the dominant factor in analytical cost and performance, ahead of cluster size.
Partition Pruning concept Storage Layout & Partitioning The query engine skipping entire partitions whose values cannot match the filter, which is where most large-table query performance comes from.