analytics-dictionary / term / data infrastructure

API

An API (application programming interface) is a defined way for software systems to exchange data and commands.

Written by Reflective Data experts · updated Oct 5, 2026

Most marketing and SaaS tools expose APIs that pipelines use to extract data. APIs have rate limits, authentication rules and occasional breaking changes.

Reliable extraction means handling pagination, retries and version changes gracefully.

Change data capture (CDC)Data pipeline ETL (extract, transform, load)

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Data lake

A data lake is a store that holds large amounts of raw data in its original…

data-lineage.md

Data lineage

Data lineage shows where data comes from and how it is transformed on its way to…

apache-kafka.md

Apache Kafka

Apache Kafka is an open-source platform for streaming events between systems in real time.

dagster.md

Dagster

Dagster is an orchestration platform that models data pipelines in terms of the data assets they…

pii.md

Personally identifiable information (PII)

PII is any data that can identify a person, such as a name, email address, phone…

apache-airflow.md

Apache Airflow

Apache Airflow is an open-source platform for authoring, scheduling and monitoring data workflows.

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