Data, Databases & the Web

Where data lives

An organised store of information that an app reads from and writes to.

Structured Query Language

The standard language for asking questions of, and managing, data in relational databases.

Create, Read, Update, Delete

The four basic actions almost every app performs on its data.

JavaScript Object Notation

The lightweight, readable text format used to pass data between systems. The default for modern APIs.

HyperText Transfer Protocol (Secure)

The rules browsers and servers use to communicate. HTTPS is the encrypted version and is now standard across the web; browsers label sites without it as 'Not secure'.

Representational State Transfer

The most common style for building web APIs, using ordinary web requests to read and update data.

Uniform Resource Locator

The web address of a page or resource, such as https://example.com.

A speed-up store

A temporary copy of data kept close at hand so it can be served faster the next time it is needed.

Content Delivery Network

A worldwide network of servers that delivers websites and files quickly from a location near each user.

Domain Name System

The internet's address book, translating names like example.com into the numeric addresses computers use.

Event-driven HTTP callback

An automatic HTTP message sent to another system when a subscribed event happens, avoiding repeated polling for updates.

API query language and runtime

A typed API query language that lets a client request precisely the fields it needs rather than accepting a fixed response shape.

Persistent two-way web connection

A protocol that keeps a two-way connection open so a browser and server can exchange messages instantly without repeated requests.

Non-relational database family

Databases that do not rely only on relational tables, often storing documents, key-value pairs, graphs or wide-column data.

Extract, Transform, Load / Extract, Load, Transform

Two data-pipeline orders: ETL cleans data before loading it, while ELT loads raw data first and transforms it inside the destination platform.

Analytics data stores

A warehouse organises curated data for reporting and analysis; a lake stores large volumes of raw structured and unstructured data for later use.

Managed API entry point

A central front door that routes API calls to back-end services and can apply authentication, rate limits, logging and other shared controls.

Open-source relational database

An open-source relational database management system created as a community-led fork of MySQL and designed for broad compatibility.

Relational database management system

A widely used relational database management system that stores structured data in tables and is operated through SQL.

Data carried by a message

The useful data carried inside a request, response or message, separate from routing and other structural metadata.