Solution 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Problem statement | A plain-language, technology-free description of the problem being solved | Requirements Elicitation & Solution Scoping |
| Scope creep | Uncontrolled expansion of scope after it was agreed | Requirements Elicitation & Solution Scoping |
| ADR (Architecture Decision Record) | A short written record of a design decision, the options considered, and why one was chosen | Solution Options Analysis & Trade-offs |
| Trade-off | A benefit gained by one option at the cost of a downside elsewhere | Solution Options Analysis & Trade-offs |
| NFR (Non-Functional Requirement) | A measurable quality target (performance, availability, security, scalability) rather than a feature | Non-Functional Requirements |
| p95 latency | The response time under which 95% of requests complete | Non-Functional Requirements |
| SLA (Service Level Agreement) | A committed, measurable target for availability or performance | Non-Functional Requirements |
| Synchronous (sync) integration | The caller waits for a response before continuing | Component & Integration Design |
| Asynchronous (async) integration | The caller continues without waiting for a response | Component & Integration Design |
| Eventual consistency | Data across components converges to the same state over time, not instantly | Component & Integration Design |
| Build vs. buy vs. reuse | The decision between custom development, purchasing a product, or reusing an existing internal platform | Technology Selection |
| Vendor lock-in | The cost and difficulty of switching away from a vendor’s product later | Technology Selection |
| SAD (Solution Architecture Document) | The artifact packaging scope, design, NFRs, and risk for governance review | Solution Architecture Document |
| Architecture Review Board (ARB) | The recurring forum that checks proposed designs against enterprise standards | Solution Architecture Document |
| Waiver | A tracked, time-boxed, justified exception to a standard | Solution Architecture Document |
| Risk | Something that might go wrong, with an estimated likelihood and impact | Risk & Constraint Management |
| Constraint | A fixed limitation the design must work within and cannot change | Risk & Constraint Management |
| Risk register | The tracked list of risks, their assessments, and mitigations | Risk & Constraint Management |
| Transition architecture | An intermediate state between the current baseline and the target design | Transition & Roadmap Planning |
| Strangler pattern | Gradually routing functionality to a new system while the old one still handles the rest | Transition & Roadmap Planning |
| Rollback path | A defined way to revert to the previous state if a phase doesn’t perform as expected | Transition & Roadmap Planning |
| arc42 | A free, 12-section template for structuring an architecture document | Solution Architecture Document |
| ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010 | The standard defining the formal vocabulary (stakeholder, concern, viewpoint, view) behind an architecture description | Solution Architecture Document |
| ISO/IEC 25010 | The standard defining the eight software quality characteristics NFRs are typically drawn from | Non-Functional Requirements |
| TOGAF ADM Phase B–F | The ADM phases Solution Architecture roughly spans: Business, Information Systems, and Technology Architecture (B–D) through Opportunities & Solutions and Migration Planning (E–F) | Introduction to Solution Architecture |
| Autoscale rule | A rule adding/removing compute instances based on a live metric like CPU | Non-Functional Requirements |
| Failover group | An Azure SQL Database construct that auto-fails-over to a paired-region replica | Non-Functional Requirements |
| Paired region | Two Azure regions linked for sequenced platform updates and disaster recovery | Non-Functional Requirements |
| RTO / RPO | Recovery Time Objective / Recovery Point Objective — how long recovery takes and how much data loss is acceptable | Solution Options Analysis & Trade-offs |
| Serverless (FaaS) | Running custom code in a managed, event-triggered runtime (e.g. Azure Functions) without managing servers | Component & Integration Design |
| Azure Functions | Azure’s Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) compute option for event-driven, consumption-billed workloads | Technology Selection |
| Azure Storage Account | Azure’s object/file storage service (Blob, Queue, Table, File) | Technology Selection |
| Application Insights | Azure Monitor’s application performance monitoring service, used to track NFR targets like p95 latency in production | Non-Functional Requirements |