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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

18 terms shown.

Term Kind Topic What it is
Conformed Dimension Shared Dimension, Conformed Attribute pattern Dimensional Modelling A dimension defined once and used identically by every fact table, so that measures from different processes can be filtered and grouped together without a reconciliation argument.
Data Vault Modelling pattern Data Vault Modelling A modelling approach separating business keys, relationships and descriptive attributes into hubs, links and satellites, optimised for auditability and change absorption.
Data Virtualisation Query Federation, Logical Data Warehouse pattern Data Virtualisation Querying data where it lives across multiple systems through a single logical layer, without physically consolidating it.
Dimensional Model Star Schema, Kimball Model pattern Dimensional Modelling Organising analytical data as fact tables of measurements surrounded by dimension tables of descriptive context.
Hub and Satellite pattern Data Vault Modelling Separating stable business keys from their changing attributes and from their relationships, so each can be loaded independently and kept forever.
Log-Based Ingestion pattern CDC Pipeline Design Building the pipeline around a database's own change log — an initial snapshot followed by a continuous delta stream, with the two stitched together.
Medallion Architecture Bronze Silver Gold, Multi-Hop Architecture pattern Medallion Architecture Layering a data platform into raw, cleaned and business-ready zones so that reprocessing is always possible and quality improves in defined steps.
Merge Upsert pattern Ingestion Patterns Applying a batch of changes to a target by matching on a key and inserting, updating or deleting per row, which is expensive and frequently avoidable.
Metadata-Only Migration In-Place Table Adoption, Manifest Generation Migration pattern Open Table Formats Adopting a table format over data files that already exist by generating its metadata in place, so a multi-petabyte conversion becomes a minutes-long commit instead of a full rewrite.
Operational Data Push pattern Reverse ETL Sending modelled analytical data back into operational tools, which turns a warehouse table into a production dependency with none of the guarantees.
Query Cost Ceiling Scan Limit, Per-Query Byte Cap pattern Analytics Cost Control A pre-execution limit on the bytes or credits a single query may consume - converting an unbounded bill into a failed query the author can see and fix.
Query Federation pattern Data Virtualisation Executing a single query across several underlying systems without moving the data, and the performance ceiling that pushdown determines.
Reverse ETL Operational Analytics, Data Activation pattern Reverse ETL Pushing modelled data from the warehouse back into operational systems so that business tools act on the same definitions analysts report on.
Slowly Changing Dimension SCD, Type 2 Dimension pattern Slowly Changing Dimensions A modelling technique for handling attributes that change over time, where the choice determines whether historical reporting stays correct.
Snapshot-Stream Convergence Backfill Plus Change Stream, Initial Load Ordering pattern CDC Pipeline Design Starting the change stream before taking the snapshot, so that changes occurring during the backfill are captured rather than silently lost.
Source Load Budget Upstream Read Quota, Analytical Load Cap pattern Data Virtualisation An explicit cap on the concurrency, rows and duration that analytical reads may consume on an operational source - so a dashboard query cannot become a production incident.
Surrogate Key Binding As-Of Dimension Lookup, Version-at-Event Resolution pattern Slowly Changing Dimensions Resolving which version of a dimension row a fact belongs to at load time and storing that version's key on the fact - which is what freezes a historical report instead of letting it drift.
Tenant-Scoped Layout Key Tenant Clustering Key, Tenant-Aligned Physical Layout pattern Data Platform Tenancy Making the tenant identifier the column that governs a table's physical organisation, so isolation, per-tenant cost attribution and per-tenant deletion come from layout rather than from access control alone.