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

10 terms shown.

Term	Kind	Topic	What it is
Consistent Hashing Ring Hashing	concept	Partitioning & Sharding	A partitioning scheme where adding or removing a node moves only a small fraction of keys, instead of remapping everything.
Discord: Hot Partitions at Trillions of Messages Discord Message Storage	case-study	Partitioning & Sharding	Discord partitions messages by channel and time bucket, because a single very busy channel would otherwise concentrate load on one partition.
Hot Key Hot Partition, Hot Row, Key Skew, Celebrity Problem	concept	Partitioning & Sharding	A single key or narrow key range receiving a disproportionate share of traffic, so one partition saturates while the rest of the cluster is idle - the failure that no amount of horizontal scaling fixes.
Hot Key Hot Partition, Hot Shard	concept	Partitioning & Sharding	A single key or partition receiving a disproportionate share of traffic, so that a well-balanced key space still produces one overloaded node.
Hot Partition Hot Shard, Hot Key	concept	Partitioning & Sharding	One partition receiving disproportionate traffic, so the system saturates at a fraction of its aggregate capacity.
Partitioning and Sharding	concept	Partitioning & Sharding	Splitting data by a key — within one database for manageability, or across databases for capacity and isolation.
Shard Key Partition Key	practice	Partitioning & Sharding	The attribute deciding which partition a row belongs to - the single most consequential and least reversible choice in a partitioned data architecture.
Sharding in Practice Horizontal Partitioning	pattern	Partitioning & Sharding	Splitting data across independent stores, how to choose the key, and why resharding is the operation nobody plans for.
Tenant Placement Hybrid Tenancy, Shared-to-Dedicated Migration	pattern	Partitioning & Sharding	Routing each tenant to a shared pool or a dedicated database according to its size and requirements, with an online migration path between them - the hybrid model that neither all-shared nor all-dedicated can match.
Write Amplification	concept	Partitioning & Sharding	One logical write producing many physical writes - through fan-out, indexes, replication or storage-engine mechanics - and why it decides scaling limits.