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Terminology

2225 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 areas2225 Architecture Fundamentals77 Distributed Systems107 Data Architecture110 Cloud Architecture94 Networking88 API & Integration Architecture82 Reliability & Resilience75 Observability70 Performance & Capacity Engineering72 Security Architecture86 Cost Architecture & FinOps71 Business Architecture67 Architecture Communication67 Enterprise Architecture66 Legacy Modernization71 AI-Era Architecture74 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 Architecture69 Streaming & Real-Time Data69 Data Governance & Semantics74 Frontend & Experience Architecture66 Edge, Mobile & IoT68 Regulatory & Data Protection Architecture65 Assurance, Audit & Model Risk69
Kind Any concept801 practice736 pattern377 metric127 case-study77 tool62 protocol45

4 terms shown.

Term Kind Topic What it is
Attribute History Strategy concept Slowly Changing Dimensions The per-attribute decision about whether history is overwritten, versioned or kept alongside the current value, which is a business question rather than a technical one.
Fact Grain Multiplication Join Fan-Out, Dimension Row Explosion concept Slowly Changing Dimensions Silent duplication of fact rows when a fact is joined to a versioned dimension without an effective-date predicate, inflating every additive measure in proportion to how often dimension members change.
Slowly Changing Dimension SCD, Type 2 Dimension pattern Slowly Changing Dimensions A modelling technique for handling attributes that change over time, where the choice determines whether historical reporting stays correct.
Surrogate Key Binding As-Of Dimension Lookup, Version-at-Event Resolution pattern Slowly Changing Dimensions Resolving which version of a dimension row a fact belongs to at load time and storing that version's key on the fact - which is what freezes a historical report instead of letting it drift.