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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

5 terms shown.

Term Kind Topic What it is
Circuit Breakers in Practice Failure Detector, Trip Switch pattern Circuit Breakers What a breaker is actually for, the configuration that stops it causing the outage it prevents, and why Netflix moved away from static thresholds.
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.
Netflix: From Hystrix to Adaptive Concurrency Limits Hystrix, Concurrency Limits case-study Circuit Breakers Netflix's widely-copied circuit breaker library was retired in favour of limits that derive themselves from observed latency, because static thresholds go stale.