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Terminology

2185 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 areas2185 Architecture Fundamentals77 Distributed Systems107 Data Architecture110 Cloud Architecture89 Networking88 API & Integration Architecture82 Reliability & Resilience75 Observability70 Performance & Capacity Engineering72 Security Architecture81 Cost Architecture & FinOps66 Business Architecture67 Architecture Communication67 Enterprise Architecture66 Legacy Modernization66 AI-Era Architecture69 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 Architecture64 Streaming & Real-Time Data69 Data Governance & Semantics69 Frontend & Experience Architecture66 Edge, Mobile & IoT68 Regulatory & Data Protection Architecture65 Assurance, Audit & Model Risk64
Kind Any concept785 practice729 pattern362 metric125 case-study77 tool62 protocol45

18 terms shown.

Term Kind Topic What it is
Anti-Corruption Layer ACL pattern Legacy Modernization A translation layer that converts a legacy or external system's model into your own, so its concepts do not leak into your domain.
Anti-Corruption Layer in Integration pattern Legacy Integration Patterns A translation boundary that keeps a legacy system's model, vocabulary and quirks from leaking into a new system that must integrate with it.
Archive-and-Shutdown Data-Preserving Decommission, Retire With Retention, Cold Archive Retirement pattern Decommissioning Retiring an application by exporting its data to durable archival storage in a readable format and shutting the application down - separating the obligation to keep data from the obligation to keep software running.
Dual Write pattern Data Migration Strategies Writing the same change to both the old and new stores during a migration, and the reconciliation that makes it trustworthy.
Expand-Contract Migration Parallel Change, Add-Migrate-Remove, N-1 Compatibility pattern Zero-Downtime Migration Making a breaking change as a sequence of individually reversible steps - add the new alongside the old, migrate readers and writers across, then remove the old - so that at no point is a rollback destructive.
Legacy Wrapping pattern Legacy Integration Patterns Placing a modern interface in front of a legacy system so that consumers integrate with the wrapper rather than with the legacy system directly.
Lift and Shift pattern Rehosting Moving an application to new infrastructure with minimal change, trading optimisation for speed and low migration risk.
Mainframe Offload pattern Mainframe Modernization Moving read traffic and selected processing off a mainframe onto modern platforms, reducing cost and unblocking new development without replacing the core.
Managed Service Substitution pattern Replatforming Replacing a self-managed component with a managed equivalent during migration, without changing the application's architecture.
Offload Freshness Contract As-At Read Contract, Published Staleness Budget pattern Mainframe Modernization An explicit published staleness budget for a read copy that serves traffic taken off a core system, enforced by the copy itself, so that silently stale answers become visible failures rather than wrong decisions.
Read-First Extraction Reads Before Writes, Reversible Extraction Order pattern Strangler Fig Extracting a service's read path before its write path, because a wrong read migration is a flag flip while a wrong write migration is a data reconciliation exercise.
Reverse Replication Cutover Backflow Replication, Bidirectional Cutover Window, Rollback Stream pattern Coexistence Patterns Keeping a replication stream flowing from the new store back to the old one after writes have moved, so that rolling back stays a routing change instead of a restore from backup.
Shadow Comparison pattern Parallel Run Running a new implementation alongside the old on real traffic, comparing outputs without the new system affecting users.
Strangler Facade pattern Strangler Fig The routing layer in front of a legacy system that decides, per capability, whether a request goes to the old implementation or the new one.
Strangler Fig Execution pattern Strangler Fig Incrementally replacing a legacy system by routing slices of functionality to new implementations behind a facade, until nothing routes to the original.
Traffic Shadowing Dark Traffic, Mirroring, Shadow Testing pattern Parallel Run Sending a copy of real production traffic to a new implementation while the existing one continues to serve users, comparing results without exposing anyone to the new system's mistakes.
Write-Ownership Boundary Single-Writer Boundary, Authoritative Writer Assignment pattern Coexistence Patterns The line drawn during coexistence that names exactly one system as the writer for each piece of state, placed along business transaction boundaries so that no single transaction has to commit on both sides.
Zero-Downtime Migration Expand and Contract, Parallel Change pattern Legacy Modernization Changing a schema or system while it stays in service, by adding the new alongside the old, migrating, then removing the old.