Terminology varies among vendors and teams. These definitions state how terms are used on this site.
API gateway
A runtime entry point that can route API traffic and apply cross-cutting policies such as authentication, quotas and observability.
API management
The broader lifecycle capability around APIs, often including gateways, catalogues, developer onboarding, analytics and governance.
Asynchronous communication
An interaction where the sender does not wait for the receiving work to finish before continuing.
Backoff
A delay strategy that spaces repeated attempts, often increasing the delay after each failure.
Batch integration
Moving or processing data in groups at scheduled or triggered intervals.
Broker
Software that receives, stores and routes messages or events between producers and consumers.
Canonical model
A shared representation used to reduce the number of direct mappings among different system formats.
Change data capture (CDC)
Capturing inserts, updates and deletes from a data store, commonly from its transaction log.
Consumer
A system or component that receives an API response, message, event, file or dataset.
Contract
The agreed structure and behaviour of an interface, including data, errors, versions, security and operational expectations.
Correlation identifier
An identifier carried across components so one business flow can be traced end to end.
Data lineage
Information about where data originated, how it changed and which outputs depend on it.
Data orchestration
Coordinating dependencies, schedules, triggers, retries and backfills across data tasks.
Dead-letter queue
A holding area for messages that could not be processed after defined attempts or due to permanent errors.
ELT
Extract, load and transform: data is loaded before transformation in the target platform.
ETL
Extract, transform and load: data is transformed before being loaded into the main target.
Event
A record that something meaningful happened, usually expressed in the past tense.
Event-driven architecture
An architecture in which producers publish events and consumers react with reduced direct dependency.
Idempotency
The property that repeating the same operation does not create an unintended additional effect.
Integration platform as a service (iPaaS)
A managed cloud platform offering connectors, transformations, workflow and related integration capabilities.
Latency
Elapsed time between a trigger and an observed result.
Message queue
A channel in which work is typically processed by one of several competing consumers.
Metadata
Information that describes data, systems, contracts, ownership, quality or processing.
Middleware
Software that mediates communication, routing, transformation and policies between systems.
Observability
The ability to understand internal system behaviour from logs, metrics, traces and business evidence.
Orchestration
A coordinator directs a multi-step process and decides which action happens next.
Point-to-point integration
A direct connection between two participants without an intermediary integration layer.
Producer
A system or component that sends a request, message, event, file or dataset.
Publish-subscribe
A pattern where a producer publishes once and multiple independent subscriptions may receive the information.
Rate limit
A policy that restricts how many requests or operations a consumer may perform over a period.
Reconciliation
Comparing records or totals across systems to confirm that the business result is complete and consistent.
Replay
Processing previously retained events or messages again from a known position.
Schema
A formal description of the structure and constraints of data.
Service-level indicator (SLI)
A measured characteristic such as availability, latency, freshness or successful completion.
Synchronous communication
An interaction where the caller waits for the receiver to return an answer.
Topic
A named channel often used to publish events to one or more subscriptions or consumer groups.
Transformation
Changing data structure, codes, units or representation between producer and consumer.
Webhook
An HTTP callback used to notify a subscriber that an event occurred.