Terminology

454 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 areas454 Architecture Fundamentals16 Distributed Systems73 Data Architecture71 Cloud Architecture55 Networking13 API & Integration Architecture17 Reliability & Resilience16 Observability14 Performance & Capacity Engineering13 Security Architecture50 Cost Architecture & FinOps12 Business Architecture9 Architecture Communication8 Enterprise Architecture8 Legacy Modernization11 AI-Era Architecture15 Software Architecture & Engineering19 Architecture Patterns15 Architecture Decision-Making11 The Architect's Meta-Skills8

Kind Any concept166 practice107 pattern93 case-study26 tool26 protocol22 metric14

6 terms shown.

Term	Kind	Topic	What it is
Blue-Green Database Schema	pattern	Release Strategies	The constraint that makes fast rollback actually work — both application versions must be able to run against one schema at the same time.
Blue-Green Deployment	pattern	Software Architecture	Running two identical production environments and switching traffic from the old one to the new one in a single cut, with the old kept warm for rollback.
Canary Release	pattern	Software Architecture	Routing a small fraction of traffic to a new version, watching its metrics, and expanding or rolling back based on what they show.
Clean Architecture	pattern	Software Architecture	Concentric layers with a strict dependency rule — source code dependencies point only inwards, towards higher-level policy.
Feature Flag Feature Toggle	pattern	Software Architecture	A runtime switch that decouples deploying code from releasing behaviour, so unfinished or risky work can ship dark.
Microservices	pattern	Software Architecture	An architectural style where an application is a set of independently deployable services, each owning its data and aligned to a business capability.