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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

19 terms shown.

Term Kind Topic What it is
Anycast Routing protocol Routing & BGP Announcing the same IP address from many locations so that network routing delivers each client to the topologically nearest one.
BGP Border Gateway Protocol protocol Routing & BGP The protocol by which autonomous systems advertise which address ranges they can reach, determining how traffic finds any destination on the internet.
Cache-Control protocol Content Delivery Networks The HTTP header directing how a response may be cached and for how long, by browsers, proxies and CDNs.
DNS Domain Name System protocol Networking The distributed directory that resolves names to addresses, and a surprisingly load-bearing part of most architectures.
gRPC as a Transport protocol gRPC Transport A binary contract-first RPC protocol over HTTP/2 — efficient and strongly typed for internal service-to-service calls, awkward at the browser edge.
Happy Eyeballs Connection Racing, Dual-Stack Attempt Ordering protocol Networking Starting a second connection attempt on the other address family a few hundred milliseconds after the first, so a broken IPv6 or IPv4 path costs the user a short delay instead of a connection timeout.
HTTP Protocol Versions HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, HTTP/3, QUIC protocol HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2 & HTTP/3 What each HTTP version changed, which problem it solved, and where the benefit actually shows up.
HTTP/2 Multiplexing protocol HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2 & HTTP/3 Carrying many concurrent request/response streams over a single TCP connection, removing the need for multiple connections per origin.
Mutual TLS mTLS, Client Certificate Authentication protocol TLS & Certificates TLS in which both ends present certificates, so the server authenticates the client cryptographically rather than by a shared secret.
Protocol Buffers Protobuf protocol gRPC Transport A binary serialisation format with a schema definition language, generating typed code and enforcing explicit compatibility rules through field numbering.
QUIC HTTP/3 protocol HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2 & HTTP/3 A transport built on UDP that provides streams, encryption and congestion control, removing TCP's head-of-line blocking and reducing connection setup latency.
Server Name Indication SNI, TLS Host Extension protocol TLS & Certificates The cleartext hostname a client sends in its first TLS message, letting one address serve many certificates and letting a proxy route a session before it decrypts anything.
Server-Sent Events SSE, EventSource protocol WebSockets & Realtime A one-way streaming protocol over plain HTTP in which the server pushes text events to the client on a long-lived response.
TCP Handshake protocol TCP/IP The three-way SYN / SYN-ACK / ACK exchange that establishes a TCP connection, costing one round trip before any data moves.
TCP/IP protocol Networking The layered protocol suite underneath essentially all application traffic — IP routes packets, TCP turns them into a reliable ordered stream.
TCP/IP for Architects protocol TCP/IP What an architect actually needs from the transport layer — handshake cost, congestion behaviour, head-of-line blocking, and when to abandon TCP entirely.
TLS Transport Layer Security, SSL protocol Networking The protocol that gives a network connection encryption, integrity and server authentication, underneath HTTPS and most other secure transports.
WebSocket protocol Networking A protocol that upgrades an HTTP connection into a persistent, full-duplex channel so the server can push to the client without polling.
WebSockets protocol WebSockets & Realtime A persistent bidirectional connection over HTTP — the right tool for server-initiated updates, and a stateful component in an otherwise stateless architecture.