Quiz

2627 questions of the kind that actually get asked — in interviews, in architecture review boards, and by the person who has to run the thing at 3 AM. Every answer states the trade-off rather than the slogan, and says when the obvious choice is the wrong one.

All areas2627 Architecture Fundamentals81 Distributed Systems101 Data Architecture90 Cloud Architecture77 Networking86 API & Integration Architecture78 Reliability & Resilience88 Observability81 Performance & Capacity Engineering90 Security Architecture85 Cost Architecture & FinOps82 Business Architecture93 Architecture Communication91 Enterprise Architecture91 Legacy Modernization82 AI-Era Architecture86 Software Architecture & Engineering84 Architecture Patterns84 Architecture Decision-Making91 The Architect's Meta-Skills92 Delivery & Release Engineering93 Platform Engineering & Developer Experience92 Testing & Quality Architecture90 Data Platform Architecture88 Streaming & Real-Time Data93 Data Governance & Semantics81 Frontend & Experience Architecture91 Edge, Mobile & IoT88 Regulatory & Data Protection Architecture90 Assurance, Audit & Model Risk88

Difficulty Any beginner intermediate advanced

53 questions in Legacy Modernization.

Quiz

The source data contains records that violate the target's constraints. How do you handle it and who decides?

A billing platform is extracting services from a shared database. Should the code be split first or the data?

A product must move its primary data store while remaining live, with no acceptable data loss. What is the migration sequence, and where do these go wrong?

An online schema change is needed on a billion-row MySQL table with zero downtime. Compare trigger-based, binlog-based and native approaches, and describe how the change is gated and reverted.

Walk through migrating a live database to a different engine with no downtime. Where does reversibility end?

A replaced system was made read-only for 30 days. No complaints came in and it was switched off, with its data exported to an archive. Three weeks later the annual regulatory extract fails, because the job read directly from the retired database. Which design decision made this possible?

A twenty-year-old core system supports most of the business. It is on unsupported technology, three people understand it, and the last replacement attempt was abandoned after two years. Design the programme.

A new platform must integrate with legacy systems that only support batch file exchange. How should the boundary be designed so the new system is not constrained by it?

A 15-year-old monolith runs the core of the business. Leadership wants microservices. How do you approach it, and what would make you refuse?

Most large modernisation programmes are late, over budget, or abandoned. What are the recurring structural causes, rather than the project-management ones?

TSB's 2018 core banking migration moved 1.9 million customers in a single weekend and failed publicly. What would you have required before approving that cutover?

A core system is reliable, undocumented and staffed by people close to retirement. What do you do first?