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

3 terms shown.

Term	Kind	Topic	What it is
Failure Threshold	concept	Circuit Breakers	The condition that trips a circuit breaker — best expressed as a failure rate over a rolling window with a minimum request volume, not as a consecutive-failure count.
Fallback Strategy	pattern	Circuit Breakers	What a caller does instead when a circuit breaker is open — the part of the pattern that determines whether failing fast helps anyone.
Half-Open State	concept	Circuit Breakers	The circuit breaker state that allows a limited number of trial requests through to test whether a failed dependency has recovered.