Deliverables

The curriculum covers what an architect should know. This covers what an architect actually hands over: 55 artifacts, each with a worked example, a note on when it is worth producing, who reads it, and the ways it usually goes wrong. Filter by the artifact's type, the kind of engagement that calls for it, the stack or industry it is drawn against, or the audience it is written for.

Identify the deliverable → 42 diagrams, shown one at a time with the answer withheld. Nothing to submit.

7 of 55 deliverables shown.

flowchart TB
  root["Organisation Root<br/><i>policy: deny unapproved regions</i>"]

  subgraph plat["Platform"]
    direction TB
    ident["Identity<br/><i>directory, privileged access</i>"]
    conn["Connectivity<br/><i>hub VNet/VPC, firewall, DNS, VPN</i>"]
    mgmt["Management<br/><i>logs, backup, monitoring</i>"]
  end

  subgraph land["Landing Zones"]
    direction TB
    subgraph corp["Corporate"]
      p1["Prod A<br/><i>spoke</i>"]
      n1["Non-Prod A<br/><i>spoke</i>"]
    end
    subgraph online["Internet-Facing"]
      p2["Prod B<br/><i>spoke</i>"]
      n2["Non-Prod B<br/><i>spoke</i>"]
    end
  end

  sandbox["Sandbox<br/><i>spend cap, no connectivity, auto-expire</i>"]
  decom["Decommissioned<br/><i>deny all</i>"]

  root --> plat
  root --> land
  root --> sandbox
  root --> decom
  conn --- p1
  conn --- n1
  conn --- p2
  conn --- n2
  mgmt -.->|"diagnostics forwarded"| land
  ident -.->|"roles and groups"| land
Deployment & Infrastructure View

Cloud Landing Zone Diagram

The account, network, identity and policy scaffolding every future workload will be dropped into, drawn before the first workload exists.

Landing Zones Design
flowchart TB
  users(["Users"]) --> dns["Global DNS<br/><i>latency routing + health checks</i>"]

  subgraph r1["Region: primary"]
    direction TB
    lb1["Load Balancer<br/><i>public</i>"]
    subgraph az1["Zone A"]
      n1["Node Pool<br/><i>api ×3, worker ×2</i>"]
    end
    subgraph az2["Zone B"]
      n2["Node Pool<br/><i>api ×3, worker ×2</i>"]
    end
    subgraph az3["Zone C"]
      n3["Node Pool<br/><i>api ×2, worker ×1</i>"]
    end
    db1[("Primary DB<br/><i>synchronous replica in Zone B</i>")]
    lb1 --> n1
    lb1 --> n2
    lb1 --> n3
    n1 --> db1
    n2 --> db1
    n3 --> db1
  end

  subgraph r2["Region: secondary"]
    direction TB
    lb2["Load Balancer<br/><i>warm</i>"]
    n4["Node Pool<br/><i>api ×2, scaled down</i>"]
    db2[("Read Replica<br/><i>asynchronous — RPO 30s</i>")]
    lb2 --> n4 --> db2
  end

  dns --> lb1
  dns -.->|"failover only"| lb2
  db1 -.->|"async replication"| db2
Deployment & Infrastructure View

Deployment Diagram

Which runtime artifact runs on which infrastructure, in which zone and region, and what fails when one of those boundaries fails.

flowchart TB
  subgraph pri["Primary site"]
    direction TB
    p1["Application tier"]
    p2[("Transactional DB")]
    p3[("Object storage")]
    p4["Secrets + config"]
  end
  subgraph dr["Recovery site — warm"]
    direction TB
    d1["Application tier<br/><i>scaled to 0 · IaC ready</i>"]
    d2[("DB replica<br/><i>async · lag &lt; 30s</i>")]
    d3[("Storage replica<br/><i>cross-region · 15 min</i>")]
    d4["Secrets replicated"]
  end

  p2 ==>|"async"| d2
  p3 ==>|"async"| d3
  p4 ==>|"sync"| d4

  subgraph run["Recovery sequence — tested 2026-05-18"]
    direction TB
    s1["1. Declare · 5 min"]
    s2["2. Promote replica · 8 min"]
    s3["3. Scale app tier · 6 min"]
    s4["4. Repoint DNS · 5 min<br/><i>TTL 60s</i>"]
    s5["5. Verify + reconcile · 12 min"]
    s1 --> s2 --> s3 --> s4 --> s5
  end
  dr --> run
  run --> res(["Restored — measured RTO 36 min"])
Deployment & Infrastructure View

Disaster Recovery Topology

What is replicated where, in what order recovery happens, and the tested time each step takes.

flowchart LR
  subgraph e1["Ephemeral / PR"]
    direction TB
    a1["scaled to 1<br/>mocked externals<br/>synthetic data<br/><i>proves: it builds and unit-passes</i><br/>auto-destroy 24h"]
  end
  subgraph e2["Dev"]
    direction TB
    a2["shared<br/>real internal deps<br/>synthetic data<br/><i>proves: integration wiring</i><br/>anyone deploys"]
  end
  subgraph e3["Staging"]
    direction TB
    a3["prod-shaped topology<br/>real deps · sandbox externals<br/>masked prod-like data<br/><i>proves: contracts + performance</i><br/>pipeline only"]
  end
  subgraph e4["Production"]
    direction TB
    a4["full scale · multi-AZ<br/>real data<br/><i>proves: nothing — it serves</i><br/>pipeline + gate"]
  end
  e1 --> e2 --> e3 --> e4
  note["Same artifact promoted throughout.<br/>Config differs; the image digest does not."]
Deployment & Infrastructure View

Environment Topology

Which environments exist, what each one proves, what data it holds and who may deploy to it.

flowchart TB
  subgraph prod["Cluster: prod-eu (regional, 3 AZ)"]
    direction TB
    cp["Control plane<br/><i>managed · private endpoint</i>"]
    subgraph pools["Node pools"]
      direction LR
      np1["system<br/><i>taint: CriticalAddonsOnly</i>"]
      np2["general<br/><i>3–30 nodes · spot 40%</i>"]
      np3["memory<br/><i>taint: workload=memory</i>"]
      np4["gpu<br/><i>taint: workload=gpu</i>"]
    end
    subgraph ns["Namespaces"]
      direction LR
      n1["team-orders<br/><i>quota · NetworkPolicy<br/>default-deny</i>"]
      n2["team-pricing<br/><i>quota · NetworkPolicy</i>"]
      n3["platform<br/><i>mesh · ingress · logging</i>"]
    end
    cp --- pools
    pools --- ns
  end
  subgraph nonprod["Cluster: nonprod-eu"]
    direction TB
    x1["shared node pool<br/><i>spot 90%</i>"]
  end
  reg[("Image registry<br/><i>signed images only</i>")] --> prod
  reg --> nonprod
  gitops["GitOps reconciler"] -.->|"applies desired state"| prod
Deployment & Infrastructure View

Kubernetes Cluster Topology

How many clusters, split by what, which node pools exist and what isolates one tenant from another.

flowchart TB
  u(["Users"]) --> gslb["Global traffic manager<br/><i>health + latency routing</i>"]

  subgraph ra["Region A — write primary"]
    direction TB
    a1["Edge + API"]
    a2["Services"]
    a3[("Primary DB<br/><i>accepts writes</i>")]
    a1 --> a2 --> a3
  end

  subgraph rb["Region B — read + standby"]
    direction TB
    b1["Edge + API"]
    b2["Services"]
    b3[("Replica<br/><i>read only · lag &lt; 2s</i>")]
    b1 --> b2 --> b3
  end

  gslb -->|"reads: nearest"| a1
  gslb -->|"reads: nearest"| b1
  gslb -->|"writes: always A"| a1
  b2 -.->|"write forwarding<br/>+45ms"| a2
  a3 ==>|"async replication"| b3
  arb{{"Failover arbitration<br/><i>manual promote · documented<br/>RPO &le; 2s · RTO 15 min</i>"}}
  arb -.-> a3
  arb -.-> b3
Deployment & Infrastructure View

Multi-Region Topology

How many regions serve traffic, where writes are allowed, how data converges, and what the split-brain answer is.

flowchart TB
  inet(["Internet"])
  dc["Corporate Data Centre<br/><i>10.0.0.0/8</i>"]

  subgraph hub["Hub — 10.100.0.0/16"]
    direction TB
    fw["Egress Firewall<br/><i>FQDN allow-list</i>"]
    vpn["VPN / Direct Link<br/><i>BGP</i>"]
    dns["Private DNS Resolver"]
  end

  subgraph spokeA["Spoke: Prod — 10.101.0.0/16"]
    direction TB
    pub["Public Subnet<br/><i>10.101.0.0/24 — ingress LB only</i>"]
    app["App Subnet<br/><i>10.101.10.0/23 — no public IPs</i>"]
    data["Data Subnet<br/><i>10.101.20.0/24 — private endpoints</i>"]
    pub --> app --> data
  end

  subgraph spokeB["Spoke: Non-Prod — 10.102.0.0/16"]
    appn["App Subnet<br/><i>10.102.10.0/23</i>"]
  end

  inet -->|"443 only"| pub
  app -->|"all egress"| fw --> inet
  appn --> fw
  dc <-->|"BGP"| vpn
  vpn --- spokeA
  vpn --- spokeB
  spokeA x--x spokeB
Deployment & Infrastructure View

Network Topology Diagram

Segments, address ranges, routes and the control points between them — the view that says what can reach what at layer three.

Networking Design