Glossary of Popular System Integration Terms

Welcome to the Nodinite glossary of popular system integration terms. This dictionary aims to help explain the meaning of key terminology when people discuss integration platforms, systems integrations in general, monitoring, logging and repository.

Each definition is concise and informative, making it useful for both beginners and experienced professionals in the industry.

The terms are largely based on the detailed and authoritative documentation from Nodinite, a leading provider of a unique all-in-one monitoring, logging, a repository, and centralized documentation tool. Nodinite lives and breathes integrations so it is only natural to want to help explain the industry in which we operate.

This dictionary aims to provide clear explanations to help readers understand the various components, processes, and technologies involved in effective system monitoring and logging. Use it as a reference to enhance your knowledge and ensure you are well-equipped to handle the complexities of monitoring your interconnected IT environments.

Alert

A notification generated by a monitoring system when a specific event or threshold is met. It is designed to alert administrators and other stakeholders to potential issues that may need their immediate attention.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM)

The process of tracking the performance and availability of software applications to ensure they function correctly. This monitoring includes overseeing metrics like response time, error rates, and transaction volumes. Learn more about APM.

Asynchronous Logging

A logging method where log messages are processed and stored in a non-blocking manner, allowing the application to continue its operations without waiting for the logging process to complete. It enables reliable end-to-end messaging and avoids dependencies and overloading of any system used in integration solutions.

Audit Log

A chronological record that tracks user actions, changes, and access within a system. It provides detailed information on what actions were performed, by whom, and when. This information can be useful for troubleshooting, security audits, and compliance reporting.

Authentication

The process of verifying the identity of a user or system accessing the target resources like databases. It ensures that the entity requesting access is who it claims to be. This authentication is carried out through passwords, tokens, or biometric data.

Authorization

The process of determining whether an authenticated entity has permission to perform a specific action or access certain data. It is based on predefined policies and roles​ in Windows AD and other user management systems.

Auto-healing

A feature that automatically detects and resolves issues within monitored systems to minimize downtime. It executes predefined corrective actions, like restarting services or re-running tasks, when certain conditions are met, ensuring continuous operation without manual intervention​. It keeps business-critical services running, reducing costs and the negative business impact of unnecessary downtimes.

Availability

A measure of the operational uptime of a system or application. High availability indicates that a system is consistently operational and accessible when needed, often ensured through redundancy, failover mechanisms, and resilient design.

Backup

The process of creating copies of data or system configurations to prevent data loss and ensure recovery in case of failures or disasters. Backups are typically stored in secure, separate locations and can be used to restore original data in case of corruption, accidental deletion, or disaster​. You can control backup frequencies and modes through configuration parameters.

Business Process Management

A structured approach to managing and improving the efficiency of business processes through analysis and automation to achieve organizational goals and enhance business value. Gartner’s definition of Business Process Management.

Business Process Modelling

The act of representing the processes of an enterprise in a visual format to analyze and improve the current processes. Models help identify inefficiencies and design better workflows. Learn more about Business Process Modelling.

Business Process Monitoring

The practice of tracking and analyzing the performance of business processes in real-time to ensure they operate efficiently and meet business objectives.

Business Activity Monitoring (BAM)

A technology that provides real-time access to critical business performance indicators, helping organizations react promptly to changing business conditions. Learn more about BAM.

Business Continuity

Strategies and plans implemented to ensure that business operations can continue during and after a disaster, minimizing downtime and data loss.

Centralized Documentation/Repository

A unified location where all documentation related to systems, processes, and configurations is stored and managed, making it easily accessible for reference and compliance. Advanced repository solutions can provide active information about used services, systems and integrations – text and graphics. This is how the Nodinite repository model works.

Centralized Logging

The process of collecting log data from various sources into a single, centralized system for easier analysis, monitoring, and troubleshooting.

Change Management

The planning, implementation, and monitoring of changes to ensure they do not negatively impact system performance, reliability, or security. Effective change management ensures that all changes are logged, tracked, and reviewed to maintain system integrity and minimize disruptions.

Cloud Monitoring

The practice of continuously observing and managing the performance, availability, and security of applications and services hosted in the cloud.

Compliance

Adherence to laws, regulations, and standards relevant to the organization’s operations. Ensuring compliance involves regular audits, reporting, and monitoring to avoid legal issues and penalties.

Configuration Management Database (CMDB)

A CMDB is a centralized repository that stores information on all the components of an IT system. It includes details on hardware, software, systems, and other assets, and their relationships. It also provides detailed configuration information and can replace static tools like spreadsheets and Word documents. Learn more about CMDB.

Correlation

This involves linking related events or logs across different systems and sources to provide a complete picture of a process or incident. Correlation is key for diagnosing issues and understanding the flow of operations.

Custom Logging

Custom logging allows users to define specific log entries based on unique business or technical requirements. It involves creating logs with tailored data fields relevant to the user’s needs. Most companies have a custom logging strategy for tracking business transactions.

Custom Metadata

This refers to additional, user-defined data attached to log entries or system records to provide more context or detail, enhancing the usefulness of the logs for analysis and reporting. This CMDB feature also establishes relationships between objects and makes integrations more manageable. Its filters are also useful for generating insightful reports.

Customer Metadata

Metadata that’s specifically related to customer data, like identifiers, preferences, and transaction history. This data helps in personalizing services and improving customer experiences.

Dashboard

A dashboard is a visual interface where you can share important metrics, statuses, KPIs, and alerts from various systems with your business, enabling proactive monitoring and quick decision-making​. The layout is customizable while data in the widgets are individually refreshed based on user-defined thresholds to provide near-real-time data

Data Archiving

The process of moving data that is no longer actively used to a separate storage system for long-term retention. Archived data can be retrieved when needed, helping to free up resources and improve system performance​. Some monitoring and logging tools have archiving is built into them for superior long-time logging.

Data Democratization

Making data accessible to technical and non-technical users within an organization boosts decision-making and innovation, besides providing visibility into the relevant areas. Data democratization often involves using tools and platforms like Nodinite that simplify data retrieval and analysis.

Data Pipeline

Tools and processes that help to move data from one part of the system to another, often from the source to the warehouse, and eventually data analytics and presentation. These pipelines ensure that the data is accurate and are loaded and transformed per the requirements. It should also be possible to monitor the thresholds for data pipelines.

Data Replication

This is the process of copying data from one location to another to ensure consistency, availability, and reliability. It is also used for backups and ensuring high availability and disaster recovery.

Debugging

Debugging involves identifying, analyzing, and fixing issues or errors within software applications to ensure they run correctly. This process often includes examining logs and tracing through code execution to pinpoint the source of problems.

Dependency Mapping

Dependency mapping is the process of identifying and visualizing the relationships between different components or services within a system. It helps in understanding how changes in one component can affect others.

Distributed Systems

Distributed systems consist of interconnected computers working together to achieve a common goal. Each component in a distributed system communicates and coordinates its actions by passing messages to each other.

Elasticity

Elasticity refers to the ability of a system to automatically scale resources up or down based on the current demand. It ensures that the system can handle varying workloads efficiently without manual intervention.

End-to-End Monitoring

End-to-end monitoring involves tracking the performance and availability of a system from the user’s perspective, ensuring that all components in the workflow are functioning correctly and efficiently from start to finish. In some monitoring tools, agents are responsible for end-to-end monitoring.

Endpoints

Endpoints are specific locations within a network where data is either sent from or received by software applications or devices. These endpoints are essential for tracking the flow of information between different components of integrated systems.

Error Handling

Error handling is the process of detecting, managing, and resolving errors in a system. It ensures that when errors occur, they are logged, users are notified, and corrective actions are taken to maintain system stability.

Event Correlation

Event correlation refers to the process of analyzing and linking events from various sources to identify patterns, event relationships and determine the root cause of issues. This helps in understanding the sequence of events leading to a problem. enabling efficient troubleshooting, proactive monitoring and automating the monitoring of correlated events with some tools.

Event Log

An event log is a record of events that have occurred within a system. It provides a detailed history of activities, including errors, warnings, and informational messages, which can be used for troubleshooting and analysis. You can control the event log content using variables and JSON Path.

Event-Driven Architecture

Event-driven architecture is a design pattern where system components communicate and react to events. This architecture promotes decoupling and allows for more flexible and scalable systems by triggering actions based on event occurrences.

Fault Management

The process of detecting, isolating, and resolving faults in a system to maintain operational performance and reliability.

Fault Tolerance

The capability of a system to continue operating properly in the event of a failure of some of its components. Fault tolerance is achieved through redundancy and failover mechanisms​.

Graphic User Interface (GUI)

Graphic User Interface is also called GUI. A user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices using graphical icons and visual indicators instead of text-based interfaces.

Health Check

A diagnostic process that monitors the status and performance of a system’s components to ensure they are functioning correctly and efficiently. These health checks help you provide better support and maintenance.

High Availability (HA)

A design approach that ensures a system remains operational and accessible for a high percentage of time, often through redundancy and failover cluster support to minimize downtime​.

Incident Management

The process of identifying, analyzing, and correcting issues to restore normal service operation as quickly as possible and minimize business impact. It requires a structured approach to detect, respond to, and recover in a timely and efficient manner to minimize the impact of an incident and to prevent future occurrences.

Instance

A specific setup or configuration of a software application or service, often managed separately in different environments (e.g., development, testing, production) for operational flexibility.

Integration Broker

A middleware solution that facilitates the integration of various applications and systems by translating and routing messages between them. Often, agents fetch events from this integration broker for further analysis and reporting.

Integration Landscape

A graphical representation of the relationships between different integration components within an organization, used to visualize and manage complex integrations effectively. Discover how an Integration Landscape can be used in a tool for monitoring, logging, and a repository.

Integration Platform

A comprehensive suite of tools and services designed to enable the integration of disparate systems, applications, and data sources within an individual or multiple organizations​. Read more about Integration Platforms.

Java Management Extension (JMX)

A Java-based framework for managing and monitoring MBeans, which include applications, system objects, devices, and service-oriented networks. JMX also has remote monitoring capabilities and is widely used for monitoring Java applications​

Knowledge-Based Articles

Documents that provide detailed information on specific topics or issues, offering solutions and explanations. These articles are often used to help users troubleshoot and understand complex concepts or procedures​. More importantly, they are in a human-readable format to provide the right context for end users.

Latency

The time delay experienced in a system, typically measured from the initiation of an action until its effect is observed. It is a critical performance metric in monitoring and logging systems and can be controlled through configuration parameters.

LDAP Web API

A web-based interface for interacting with LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) directories. It enables applications to access directory information like user profiles and organizational structures using standard HTTP methods​. In some tools on the market, it is possible to automate LDAP-related system integrations using an API-driven approach from virtually any system integration solution or custom code.

Load Balancing

A method used to distribute workloads evenly across multiple servers or resources to ensure optimal performance, reliability, and availability. It helps prevent any single server from becoming a bottleneck.

Log Agent/Logging Agent

A log agent or logging agent is a program that collects log data from various sources, for example applications, services, or an operating system, on a host machine. It then sends the log data to a centralized logging system for storage, analysis, and monitoring. A log agent does not affect the source’s performance or functions. Read Nodinite’s definition of what a logging agent is.

Log Aggregation

The process of collecting and centralizing log data from various sources into a single repository. This makes it easier to analyze and manage logs, enhancing visibility and troubleshooting capabilities​.

Log Analysis

The examination of log data to identify patterns, anomalies, and trends. This process helps in diagnosing issues, ensuring compliance, and optimizing system performance.

Log Audit

The systematic review and assessment of log entries to ensure they comply with policies and regulations. This process is necessary for maintaining security and accountability within an organization​, and to prove compliance with mandatory regulations.

Log Database

A specialized database designed to store and manage log data. It provides efficient storage, retrieval, and analysis capabilities, often integrated with monitoring and alerting systems. When multiple log databases are needed, they should be easily accessible.

Log File Parser

A tool that reads and interprets log files, converting raw log data into a structured format for easier analysis. It helps in extracting meaningful information and identifying issues within log entries​. You can even monitor the content of text-based log files.

Log Filtering

The process of selecting specific log entries from a log file based on defined criteria, like keywords or log levels, to simplify monitoring and troubleshooting. You can use regular expressions, smart-time options, and state-based evaluation for accurate results.

Log Management

The comprehensive process of handling log data from collection and storage to analysis and reporting, ensuring logs are available for operational and security insights. It includes actions like view, search, access control, source control, and more.

Log Views

Configurable displays that present log data in a user-friendly format, allowing for efficient monitoring, searching, and filtering of logs​. In some tools log views provide the business users self-service access to selected data.

Logging (Service)

A service that extracts search field values from events and messages to facilitate self-service role-based access for business users. Also, it is responsible for processing and reprocessing events and messages that have been logged by agents or other custom solutions.

Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF)

The average time between system failures. It is used as a reliability metric to predict the performance and longevity of hardware or software systems.

Mean Time to Repair (MTTR)

It refers to the average time required to repair a system and restore it to full functionality after a failure. It serves as a key measure of system maintainability.

Message Flows

The paths that messages follow through a system, including all intermediaries and endpoints. It is critical for understanding data processing and integration behavior.

Message Types

Defines a unique name for a message type and the type of data that the message contains. Message types are in the configuration database and are used by search fields to extract values for use in search and restrictions in log views.

Monitoring Agent

A monitoring agent oversees on-premise, hybrid, and cloud resources, including services, endpoints, and functions in a systems integration chain. It monitors all dependencies and certifications end-to-end and can provide metrics, alerts, and remote actions, delivering up-to-date information to stakeholders. Click to learn more about monitoring agents.

Multi-Tenancy

An architecture in which a single instance of software serves multiple customers (tenants), ensuring data isolation and security while optimizing resource use.

Network Monitoring

The process of continuously observing a network for slow or failing components to ensure optimal performance. It gives you a comprehensive way to detect network-related problems, send alerts, measure metrics, and share data with business users.

Non-Event (Absence of expected events)

Refers to situations where expected actions or responses do not occur within a specified timeframe, triggering alerts for potential issues in system communications or workflows​.

Monitoring Non-Events involves setting up rules to detect when certain expected actions or responses do not happen, which can indicate potential issues in the system. For instance, if a scheduled task or message does not execute as anticipated, a Non-Event alert can be triggered to notify stakeholders about the failure to meet the expected criteria​. Learn more about how Nodinite’s Non-Event capabilities work.

Notification

An alert mechanism that informs users about specific events or issues within a system. Notifications can be configured to be sent via various channels like email, SMS, or system dashboards.

Observability

The capability to infer the internal states of a system based on its external outputs. This involves collecting and analyzing logs, metrics, events, non-events, and traces to understand system behavior and performance​. Learn more about Observability here.

Operational Intelligence

The real-time dynamic business analytics that deliver visibility and insight into data, streaming events, non-events, and business operations. This helps in making informed decisions quickly.

Performance Monitoring

The practice of continuously measuring system performance to ensure that applications are running optimally. This includes tracking metrics like response times, throughput, and resource utilization, and sending alerts accordingly. For example, you can get alerts when the workflow run-time duration exceeds your user-defined thresholds.

Predictive Analytics

Use of data, statistical algorithms, and machine learning techniques to identify the likelihood of future outcomes based on historical data. This is used to anticipate and mitigate potential issues before they occur.

Proactive Monitoring

A strategy that involves anticipating potential problems and addressing them before they impact the system. This includes setting up alerts and taking preventive measures based on trends and patterns observed in system data.

Queues

Data structures are used to manage and order tasks or messages waiting to be processed by a system. Queues ensure that tasks are handled in a specific order.

Real-Time Monitoring

The continuous surveillance of a system’s performance and state, providing immediate feedback and alerts on system health and operational issues as they happen.

Redundancy

A system design principle that duplicates critical components to ensure reliability and availability in case of failure.

Remediation

The process of correcting or resolving issues that have been identified in a system, often through automated or manual actions.

Remote actions

Operations that can be executed on a system from a remote location, like restarting services or changing configurations, to manage and resolve issues​. Examples include restarting services, running scripts, or enabling features to maintain system health and continuity​.

Repository

A centralized storage location for data, configurations, and other important information needed for system operations and integrations. This repository acts as the single source of truth within your organization.

Role-based Access

A security mechanism that grants system permissions based on user roles, ensuring that users have access only to the information and functions necessary for their role. This is vital to implement democratization of centralized monitoring & logging.

Root Cause Analysis

A methodical approach to identifying the underlying causes of issues or failures in a system, enabling effective resolution and prevention.

Scalability

The capability of a system to perform well under increased load. This would be done by seamlessly adding resources as demand grows.

Scripted Alerts

Alerts are generated based on custom scripts that monitor specific conditions within a system, providing flexibility in monitoring and notification setups.

SDK (Software Development Kit)

A collection of software tools and libraries that developers use to create applications for specific platforms or frameworks.

Search Field

Allows users to filter and locate specific data within logs. It provides a means to define conditions for searching log entries and can be used for grouping, correlating, and analyzing log data based on various parameters

Search Field Wizard

It simplifies the process of setting up search conditions and performing group-by operations. This feature enables users to find specific data without requiring extensive technical knowledge, making it easier to track business transactions and other important metrics efficiently. The wizard guides users through the setup process, ensuring accurate and effective search configurations. Example of a search field.

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)

A technology that provides real-time analysis of security alerts generated by network hardware and applications. It collects and analyzes data to detect suspicious activity and enhance security.

Self-Healing

Same as auto-healing.

Service Bus

A messaging infrastructure for connecting various applications, services, and devices, whether they are on-premise, in the cloud, or part of a hybrid environment. It allows different components to communicate reliably and asynchronously by sending and receiving messages. Service buses handle message queuing and topic-based publish/subscribe patterns and ensure that messages are delivered even in the face of network failures or system outages.

Service Level Agreement (SLA)

A contract that defines the expected service standards and performance metrics between a service provider and a customer. It includes specifications on uptime, response time, and other key performance indicators. The SLA is of great help for IT operations to prioritize incident handling.

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)

An architectural pattern that allows different services to communicate and cooperate over a network. It promotes reusability, scalability, and flexibility by decoupling service implementation from service interfaces.

Serielog Service Bus

A messaging framework designed to handle log data from various sources. It ensures efficient log aggregation, processing, and storage, enhancing the visibility and management of system logs.

Syslog

A standard protocol for logging system messages. It collects and stores log data from various devices, like servers and network equipment, facilitating centralized log management and analysis.

System Integrations and Maintenance Software (SIMS)

A suite of tools and applications that facilitate the integration and maintenance of complex IT systems. It supports monitoring, logging, and managing system interactions to ensure smooth operations.

Threshold Alerting

Threshold Alerting involves setting specific limits or thresholds for various metrics or parameters within a system. When these thresholds are crossed, alerts are triggered to notify administrators. This helps in identifying and addressing potential issues before they become critical. Some tools allow users to define these thresholds and automatically monitors the metrics, sending notifications when the defined limits are exceeded

Time-Series Database

A time-series database stores data points indexed in time order. It is optimized for handling time-stamped data, allowing efficient retrieval and analysis of trends over time.

Traceability

Traceability ensures that all changes in a system can be tracked from origin to final implementation. This helps in auditing, debugging, and maintaining compliance.

Tracking

Tracking involves monitoring the progress and status of processes and transactions in real time, ensuring that they follow the expected path and meet performance criteria​.

Transaction Monitoring

Transaction monitoring continuously observes transactions within a system to detect anomalies, performance issues, and compliance violations.

Trigger

A trigger is a predefined event that automatically initiates specific actions or workflows in response to certain conditions being met within the system.

Unified Monitoring

Unified monitoring consolidates the observation of various systems and processes into a single interface, providing comprehensive visibility and control over the entire IT environment.

Uptime

Uptime is the total time a system or service is operational and available. High uptime is important for ensuring reliability and user satisfaction.

User Experience (UX)

User Experience (UX) focuses on the overall experience of users interacting with a system, including ease of use, accessibility, and satisfaction​.

User Interface (UI)

The User Interface (UI) is the graphical layout of an application, including buttons, icons, and menus that users interact with to control the system. See an example of a web client user interface.

Version Control

Version control is the management of changes to documents, software, and other information. It allows for tracking revisions, collaborating on changes, and reverting to previous versions if needed.

Visualization (of data)

Data visualization involves representing data in graphical formats like charts and graphs, making it easier to understand patterns, trends, and insights​.

Example of how integrations, systems and services can be depicted visually. Read more about it at the Nodinite Documentation site.

Watchdog Timer

A watchdog timer is a hardware or software timer that automatically triggers corrective actions or system resets if a system fails to operate correctly within a predefined time​.

Web API

A web API allows applications to interact with each other using web protocols. It provides a way to perform operations over the web, like retrieving data or modifying resources, by making HTTP requests. APIs typically support various programming languages and are designed to automate tasks and integrate different systems seamlessly.

The Nodinite Web API, for example, supports operations that can automate many tasks within the Nodinite environment, aiding in systems integration and process automation

Web Client

An application with a user interface that allows end-users to access and interact with services through a web browser. It uses HTML5, making it compatible with modern browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari.

Nodinite’s web client , for example, also offers features like dashboards, log views, monitor views, and repository management, all secured by role-based access to ensure appropriate permissions for different users.​

Webhook

User-defined HTTP callbacks that alter the behavior of a web page or web application with custom callbacks, typically triggered by events like receiving data or status updates.

In Nodinite, an event is triggered by the Nodinite Monitoring Service when rules and settings from Nodinite alarm plugins apply. Learn more about Webhooks.

Windows Services

Windows Services are long-running executable applications that run in the background on Windows operating systems. They can be automatically started when the computer boots and runs without user intervention.

Workflow

Workflow is the sequence of processes through which a piece of work passes from initiation to completion. It includes steps, conditions, and actions to achieve a specific outcome​. An example of a workflow could be an order workflow initiated by a client in a front-end portal going accessing various services and steps finally reaching a warehouse where ordered good are packed and shipped.

Bringing It All Together

Understanding the terminology used in monitoring and logging workflows is important for maintaining the health and efficiency of modern IT systems. This dictionary provides clear and concise definitions of key terms, largely derived from the extensive documentation provided by Nodinite.

With this resource, professionals can better grasp the concepts and technologies of effective monitoring and logging practices. We hope this information will better equip you to navigate the complexities of system integration and management, enabling you to respond proactively to any emerging issues.

Please note also that this dictionary of IT system integration terminology is constantly evolving. If you have new words that you want to add or want to elaborate on an existing definition, we welcome your contribution. Simply complete and submit this form.

Interested in learning more about Nodinite’s software tool for monitoring, logging, centralized documentation and repository? Then either request a demo or visit our website.

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