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
Stream-Table Duality	concept	Streaming Data	The equivalence between a stream of changes and a table of current state — each can be derived from the other.
Watermark	concept	Streaming Data	A moving assertion that no events older than a given event-time will arrive, which is what allows an event-time window to be closed and emitted.
Windowing	concept	Streaming Data	Grouping an unbounded stream into finite chunks so aggregation can produce results, defined over event time rather than arrival time.