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Quiz

2667 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 areas2667 Architecture Fundamentals81 Distributed Systems101 Data Architecture90 Cloud Architecture87 Networking86 API & Integration Architecture78 Reliability & Resilience88 Observability81 Performance & Capacity Engineering90 Security Architecture95 Cost Architecture & FinOps92 Business Architecture93 Architecture Communication91 Enterprise Architecture91 Legacy Modernization92 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

41 questions in Enterprise Architecture.

  1. Paved Roads advanced

    A company builds an internal platform to standardise how services are created and operated across hundreds of teams. What should it enforce, what should it leave flexible, and how does it avoid becoming an obstacle?

    3 min answer mercado-librefuryinternal-platformgolden-path
  2. Paved Roads advanced

    From 2011 the UK's Government Digital Service required central approval for departmental digital spending above a threshold (about £100,000, and zero for some categories such as public-facing websites) alongside a published service standard and assessments. By 2026 the GDS-run controls had been retired in favour of departmental ownership with a much higher pipeline threshold. What did controlling the money achieve that a standards document could not, and where would copying it be a mistake?

    4 min answer gdsgovernancefundingstandards
  3. Platform Teams advanced

    You run a platform team of twelve serving four hundred engineers. Product teams say the platform is a bottleneck; your team says the requests are unbounded and they cannot do product work. Both are right. What do you change?

    2 min answer platform-teamsself-serviceboundariesprioritisation
  4. Application Rationalisation advanced

    A multi-product SaaS company has accumulated overlapping internal systems - three notification services, four job schedulers, two feature-flag systems. How should rationalisation be approached?

    2 min answer freshworksrationalisationportfolioconsolidation
  5. Application Rationalisation advanced

    A rationalisation programme assessed 400 applications and identified £8m of savings. Two years later nothing has been saved. Why?

    2 min answer eaportfolioexecution
  6. Application Rationalisation advanced

    An application marked for retirement is switched off after its users are migrated. Nobody cuts the 14 interfaces that fed it or read from it. What happens over the following year?

    3 min answer rationalisationdecommissioningintegrationzombie
  7. Application Rationalisation advanced Multiple choice

    An enterprise consolidates nine departmental systems that all implement the same capability into one platform. Which risk materialises first and does most damage to the programme?

    2 min answer rationalisationconsolidationmigrationrequirements
  8. Application Rationalisation advanced

    An enterprise consolidates nine systems implementing the same capability into one. What are the risks, and what makes such programmes fail?

    2 min answer rationalisationconsolidationmigrationsecond-system
  9. Application Rationalisation advanced

    An enterprise has 900 applications, many overlapping. How do you decide what to keep, consolidate, replace or decommission — and why do rationalisation programmes usually stall?

    3 min answer portfoliorationalisationdecommissioningsix-rs
  10. Architecture Roadmaps advanced

    A CTO commits to a three-year architecture roadmap with named platforms, sequencing and a funded programme, in exchange for board approval of the budget. What has been gained, what has been given up, and when does that bill arrive?

    3 min answer roadmappingoptionalitycommitmentfunding
  11. Architecture Roadmaps advanced

    A target-state architecture was signed off 18 months ago - 9 named platform components, a 3-year sequence, £11m funded. Since then two of the nine products have been discontinued by their vendors, the team named as owner of the integration layer has been reorganised out of existence, and the event backbone has been live for a year with 2 of its 14 planned producers. The programme continues to execute against the original document. What happens over the next 12 months?

    3 min answer roadmappingtarget-statedecision-pointsdual-running
  12. Architecture Roadmaps advanced

    How would you sequence a two-year modernisation so that cancelling it after six months still leaves the organisation better off?

    2 min answer roadmapsequencingincremental-valuestrangler