Integration Architecture Glossary
A single reference for the acronyms and terms introduced across this section — link here instead of re-deriving a definition from an earlier page.
| Term | Meaning | Defined in |
|---|---|---|
| Point-to-point | A direct connection from one system straight to another | Integration Patterns & Styles |
| Hub-and-spoke | All systems connect to one central router instead of each other | Integration Patterns & Styles |
| ESB | Enterprise Service Bus — a shared bus that routes and transforms messages | Integration Patterns & Styles |
| Enterprise Integration Patterns (EIP) | Hohpe & Woolf’s standard catalog of messaging-integration patterns | Integration Patterns & Styles |
| API-led connectivity | Layered APIs (system/process/experience) behind a gateway | API-Led Connectivity |
| System API | Wraps one backend system, hides its protocol/format quirks | API-Led Connectivity |
| Process API | Orchestrates one or more system APIs into a business process | API-Led Connectivity |
| Experience API | Shapes data for one specific consumer | API-Led Connectivity |
| Queue | Delivers each message to exactly one consumer | Messaging & Event Brokers |
| Topic / pub-sub | Broadcasts each message to every subscriber | Messaging & Event Brokers |
| At-least-once delivery | A broker guarantee that a message will be delivered, possibly more than once | Messaging & Event Brokers |
| AsyncAPI | The standard specification for documenting event/message contracts | Messaging & Event Brokers |
| Orchestration | A central coordinator directs each step of a multi-system process | Orchestration vs. Choreography |
| Choreography | Each system reacts independently to events, with no central coordinator | Orchestration vs. Choreography |
| Saga | A sequence of local transactions with compensating transactions for rollback | Orchestration vs. Choreography |
| Compensating transaction | An action that undoes an earlier step’s effect after a later failure | Orchestration vs. Choreography |
| CDC | Change Data Capture — streaming a database’s changes as they happen | Data Synchronization & Consistency |
| Idempotency | Processing the same operation twice has the same effect as processing it once | Data Synchronization & Consistency |
| Reconciliation | A periodic batch comparison that detects (or fixes) drift between systems | Data Synchronization & Consistency |
| iPaaS | Integration Platform as a Service — hosted platform for connectors and integration flows | Integration Platforms & Middleware |
| Service mesh | Infrastructure layer securing and observing service-to-service traffic | Integration Platforms & Middleware |
| EDI | Electronic Data Interchange — structured document exchange with external trading partners | Integration Platforms & Middleware |
| Circuit breaker | Stops calling a failing dependency for a cooldown period | Resilience & Error Handling in Integration |
| Dead-letter queue (DLQ) | Holds messages that failed processing after retries, for review | Resilience & Error Handling in Integration |
| OAuth2 client credentials | An OAuth2 flow where a system authenticates as itself, not on behalf of a user | Integration Security & Governance |
| mTLS | Mutual TLS — both client and server present certificates to verify each other | Integration Security & Governance |
| Rate limiting / throttling | Capping how often a consumer can call an API in a given period | Integration Security & Governance |
| Contract governance | The process ensuring API/event contract changes don’t silently break consumers | Integration Security & Governance |
| Azure API Management | Azure’s API gateway service — hosts and secures published API products | API-Led Connectivity |
| Private endpoint | A network interface giving a resource a private IP inside a VNet, removing its public exposure | API-Led Connectivity |
| Azure Service Bus | Azure’s managed queue/topic message broker | Messaging & Event Brokers |
| Azure Durable Functions | An Azure Functions extension for writing stateful orchestrations (sagas) | Orchestration vs. Choreography |
| Azure Front Door | Azure’s global entry point (CDN + WAF + load balancing) for internet-facing apps and APIs | Integration Security & Governance |
| Leader and Followers | Fowler’s distributed-systems pattern describing one leader accepting writes with followers replicating them | Data Synchronization & Consistency |