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

3 terms shown.

Term	Kind	Topic	What it is
Cloud Egress Cost	concept	Network & Egress Costs	The asymmetric pricing where data entering a cloud is free and data leaving is charged, which shapes architecture more than most teams expect.
Data Gravity Data Inertia, Locality Pull, Egress Pull	concept	Network & Egress Costs	The tendency of large data to attract compute and services toward it, because moving data across billed or slow boundaries is expensive while moving computation to the data is cheap.
Egress Path Analysis	practice	Network & Egress Costs	Tracing where data physically moves in an architecture, because transfer charges follow paths that appear nowhere on the diagram.