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

12 terms shown.

Term	Kind	Topic	What it is
Build Provenance Attestation, SLSA Provenance, Artefact Lineage	pattern	Supply Chain Security	A signed, verifiable record of which source, builder and inputs produced a given artefact, checked at deployment - which makes the integrity of the build system testable rather than assumed.
Dynamic Secrets	pattern	Secrets Management	Credentials generated on demand for a specific consumer with a short lease, rather than stored, shared and rotated periodically.
Envelope Encryption	pattern	Key Management	Encrypting data with a locally generated data key, then encrypting that key with a master key held in a key management service.
Field-Level Encryption Application-Level Encryption	pattern	Encryption	Encrypting specific sensitive fields in the application before they reach the datastore, so the store never holds plaintext.
Microsegmentation	pattern	Zero Trust	Enforcing fine-grained network policy between individual workloads rather than between broad network zones, so a compromise cannot move laterally.
Per-Record Tenancy Record-Level Ownership, Attribute-Based Tenancy, Cross-Org Data Ownership	pattern	Authorization	Attaching the owning organisation to each record rather than to its container, so that data shared across tenant boundaries can still be governed, exported, retained and deleted according to the policy of whoe…
Phishing-Resistant Authentication Origin-Bound Authentication, Unphishable MFA	pattern	Authentication	Authentication whose response cannot be replayed at a site other than the one it was produced for, because the authenticator signs the requesting origin rather than releasing a secret the user could pass on.
Policy Decision Point PDP, Authorization Service, Policy Engine	pattern	Zero Trust	The component that evaluates an authorisation question and returns a decision, kept separate from the enforcement points that ask, so policy can change without redeploying every service.
Signing Boundary Policy Policy at the HSM, Constrained Signing	pattern	Key Management	Enforcing transaction policy at the hardware signing boundary rather than in application code, so that a compromised application cannot obtain an arbitrary signature.
Step-Up Authentication	pattern	Authentication	Requiring stronger proof of identity at the moment a consequential action is attempted, rather than applying maximum friction to every session.
Tag-Bound Access Policy Classification-Driven Access Control, Tag-Based Masking	pattern	Data Classification	An access rule attached to a classification label rather than to a table, so that tagging data is what applies the control and derived copies inherit it through lineage.
Tamper-Evident Log	pattern	Auditability	An audit log constructed so that any modification or deletion of past entries is detectable, typically by chaining entries cryptographically.