Systems Architecture and Integration Vocabulary Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering core concepts of Enterprise Architecture, Monolithic vs. Microservices, BDAT Stack, SOA Principles, APIs, Protocols, Messaging, and Integration Patterns based on the Wayground Quiz lecture notes.

Enterprise Architecture (EA)

A conceptual blueprint that aligns business strategy, processes, data flows, and IT infrastructure to ensure IT and business strategy remain aligned.

Strategic Alignment

The EA principle that technology exists primarily to serve and deliver business outcomes.

As-Is State

The current or existing state of an organization's legacy environment and architecture.

To-Be State

The future target blueprint or desired state of an organization's architecture.

Capability-Centric Modeling

An architectural approach that models the enterprise around what the business must be able to do to deliver value, rather than organizing purely around departments.

Standardization & Modularity

An architectural goal focused on reducing technical debt and encouraging reusable standards across the enterprise.

Architectural Governance

The rules, principles, and review processes that guide projects and technology decisions.

Monolithic Architecture

An application built as one single integrated system where features generally share the same codebase and database.

Microservices Architecture

An architecture where an application is divided into small, independent services that can be updated, deployed, and scaled based on demand.

EA Components

Specific artifacts, domains, and operational tools used to put Enterprise Architecture concepts into action.

Business Architecture

The domain of EA that describes what the enterprise does, who does it, and how value is generated, translating strategic goals into operational reality.

Business Capability Model

A hierarchical map of what the business must be able to perform.

Value Streams

End-to-end sequences of activities that deliver a specific outcome.

BPMN

Business Process Model and Notation; a standard used to represent detailed operational workflows, showing swimlanes, tasks, handoffs, and business rules.

Data Architecture

The domain of EA that defines how business information flows, where it is stored, and how its quality, integrity, and security are maintained.

Application Architecture

The domain of EA that maps the software landscape and how applications support business capabilities and interact with each other, commonly through APIs.

Technology Architecture

The domain of EA describing the physical, virtual, and cloud infrastructure required to host applications and data.

Architecture Principles

Foundational, long-term rules that guide technology and operational decisions, establishing boundaries for software design, data management, and infrastructure purchasing.

Architecture Repository

A central source of truth containing architectural blueprints, inventories, standards, and decision histories.

Technology Standards

Rules defining which programming languages, frameworks, databases, cloud services, and vendors may be used within an organization.

Transition Roadmap

A step-by-step plan for moving an organization from its current state (As-Is) to its future target state (To-Be).

Gap Analysis

An architectural process used to identify differences between the current state and the desired future state.

Architecture Review Board (ARB)

A cross-functional governing council that reviews proposed software and infrastructure designs for compliance with enterprise standards.

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)

An architectural design pattern where application components provide services to other components through communication protocols.

SOA Triad

The core three-part structural model of SOA consisting of Provider, Consumer, and Registry.

Service Provider

An SOA component that creates the service, defines its contract/interface, and publishes it to the registry.

Service Consumer

An SOA component that locates a required service and invokes it according to its contract.

Service Registry / Directory

A searchable central directory (such as UDDI) where service descriptions are stored.

Standardized Service Contract

A formal specification (such as WSDL or OpenAPI) describing a service's purpose and capabilities.

Loose Coupling

An SOA principle that reduces dependencies between services, ensuring changes to internal service implementations (e.g., database changes) do not break consumers as long as the service contract remains unchanged.

Service Abstraction

An SOA principle where services hide their internal implementation details (such as programming language, database technology, and runtime environment) from outside consumers.

Service Reusability

Designing services so they can be reused across multiple projects, workflows, and applications.

Service Autonomy

An SOA principle where a service maintains high control over its underlying resources, execution scope, and runtime environment.

Service Statelessness

An SOA principle where services avoid retaining state information between requests whenever possible to maximize scalability.

Service Composability

Combining multiple smaller services to create larger composite applications or orchestrated business processes.

Service Discoverability

Designing services to be easily located through a central directory or registry.

Integrating Technologies

Tools, middleware, protocols, and architectural standards that provide the pipes, mechanisms, and rules for data transmission and system interoperability.

Application Integration

The process of connecting software systems (e.g., CRM, ERP, E-commerce) so business processes can flow seamlessly.

REST

Representational State Transfer; a lightweight API style using standard HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) and JSON output, commonly used for web and mobile integration.

SOAP

Simple Object Access Protocol; a strict, XML-based protocol with built-in security features such as WS-Security, commonly used in legacy enterprise and financial systems.

GraphQL

An API technology that allows clients to request precisely the data they need, thereby reducing over-fetching and under-fetching.

gRPC

A high-performance Remote Procedure Call (RPC) framework using Protocol Buffers, particularly suitable for low-latency microservices communication.

Message Queue (MQ)

Middleware (such as RabbitMQ) that enables asynchronous communication and loose coupling by allowing systems to place messages in a queue for consumers to process when ready.

Event Streaming Platform

A high-throughput platform (such as Apache Kafka) designed for real-time event processing, commonly utilizing a publish-subscribe model.

Event-Driven Architecture

An architecture where a system publishes events (such as OrderPlaced) and other applications independently react to them.

Data Transformation & Protocol Translation

The activity of converting data structures or formats (such as XML to JSON) so different systems can communicate.

ETL

Extract, Transform, Load; tools commonly used for bulk data synchronization and analytics environments.

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

An enterprise integration platform (such as MuleSoft Anypoint) that provides routing, translation, and security across applications.

iPaaS

Integration Platform as a Service; cloud-hosted integration middleware (such as Workato) featuring pre-built connectors and automation workflows.

Point-to-Point Integration

An integration pattern involving direct connections between individual applications, which becomes brittle and complex as the system grows.

Hub-and-Spoke Integration

An integration pattern using a central broker to handle communication between applications, reducing the number of direct connections required.