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

25 terms shown.

Term	Kind	Topic	What it is
Benefit Realisation Checkpoint Post-Implementation Benefit Review, Benefit Sign-Off Gate	practice	Outcome Measurement	A scheduled review after go-live at which the budget holder confirms whether the claimed benefit has appeared in a named line, so that a benefit which never arrives is distinguishable from one that did.
Build versus Buy	practice	Build vs Buy	Whether to build a capability or acquire it — decided primarily by whether the capability differentiates, not by whether you could build it.
Business Case Structure	practice	Business Cases	The argument format that gets technical investment funded — problem, options, quantified benefit, cost, risk and a recommendation.
Business Cases	practice	Business Cases	The argument that an investment is worth making — where architects supply the cost, risk and option value rather than the enthusiasm.
Business Continuity	practice	Business Continuity	Keeping the business operating through disruption — a broader discipline than disaster recovery, and one that includes not using the system at all.
Business Impact Analysis	practice	Business Continuity	Determining which business processes must be restored, how quickly, and what the consequence of not doing so is — the input from which recovery targets are derived.
Capability Heat Map	practice	Capability Mapping	A capability map coloured by a chosen dimension — maturity, cost, risk, or strategic importance — to make patterns visible to non-technical stakeholders.
Capability Mapping	practice	Capability Mapping	Laying out capabilities hierarchically and overlaying information — systems, cost, health, differentiation — to make investment decisions visible.
Capability Maturity Assessment	practice	Business Capabilities	Rating each business capability on how well it is currently performed, so investment can be directed at the gap between importance and maturity.
Compensating Control	practice	Stakeholder Analysis	A cheaper measure that reduces a risk enough to proceed, used deliberately and with an expiry, when the full control cannot be delivered in the available time.
Compliance Obligation Mapping	practice	Regulatory Constraints	Translating regulatory text into specific, testable technical requirements attached to the systems they apply to.
Cost of Inaction Cost of Delay, Do-Nothing Cost	practice	Business Cases	The quantified ongoing cost of leaving a system as it is - the number that lets architectural work compete against feature work for funding.
Domain Boundaries from the Business	practice	Domain Boundaries	Deriving service boundaries from the language and decisions of the business, rather than from data structure or team structure.
Keeping-the-Lights-On Baseline Run Reservation, KTLO Allocation	practice	Portfolio Prioritisation	The share of engineering capacity that unplanned and maintenance work consumes whether or not it is planned, reserved explicitly so that roadmap commitments are achievable and the trade-off is visible.
KPI Attribution Chain Benefit Attribution Chain, Metric Causal Chain	practice	Business KPIs	The explicit path from an architecture change through an operational metric and a short-lag product metric to the business measure finance reports - with the lag and the counterfactual named - so the benefit c…
Manual Fallback Capacity Degraded-Mode Throughput, Paper-Process Capacity	practice	Business Continuity	The transactions per hour a business can actually complete without its system - the measured number that says whether a recovery-time objective is survivable and how long the catch-up takes.
Operational Readiness Go-Live Readiness, Launch Readiness	practice	Time to Market	Defining go-live from the whole value stream rather than from the deployment, so the processes that receive a launch - returns, reconciliation, support, tax - are ready before customers arrive rather than week…
Outcome Measurement	practice	Outcome Measurement	Determining whether an architectural change achieved what it was meant to — the step most often skipped, which is why the same mistakes recur.
Platform as a Product	practice	Platform as a Product	Running an internal platform with users, a roadmap and adoption metrics — because a platform that must be mandated is one that has not earned its use.
Platform as a Product	practice	Platform as a Product	Running an internal platform with the disciplines of a product — voluntary adoption, user research, documentation and a roadmap — rather than as a mandated standard.
Power-Interest Grid	practice	Stakeholder Analysis	A classification of stakeholders by their influence over a decision and their level of concern with it, used to allocate communication effort deliberately.
Protected Allocation Ring-Fenced Capacity, Non-Negotiated Investment	practice	Portfolio Prioritisation	A fixed share of capacity reserved for a category of work that loses every individual comparison against features - because the aggregate outcome would otherwise be nobody's decision.
Stakeholder Analysis	practice	Stakeholder Analysis	Identifying who has a stake in a decision, what each cares about, and what would make each object — before the design review rather than during it.
Strategic Sourcing Decision	practice	Build vs Buy	A build-versus-buy decision framed around competitive differentiation and organisational capacity rather than a comparison of visible costs.
Weighted Shortest Job First	practice	Portfolio Prioritisation	Sequencing work by dividing the cost of delaying it by the effort to deliver it, which maximises value delivered per unit of time.