Quiz

2868 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 areas2868 Architecture Fundamentals91 Distributed Systems101 Data Architecture90 Cloud Architecture87 Networking86 API & Integration Architecture87 Reliability & Resilience99 Observability92 Performance & Capacity Engineering90 Security Architecture95 Cost Architecture & FinOps92 Business Architecture93 Architecture Communication102 Enterprise Architecture100 Legacy Modernization92 AI-Era Architecture96 Software Architecture & Engineering93 Architecture Patterns94 Architecture Decision-Making101 The Architect's Meta-Skills102 Delivery & Release Engineering103 Platform Engineering & Developer Experience92 Testing & Quality Architecture102 Data Platform Architecture98 Streaming & Real-Time Data103 Data Governance & Semantics91 Frontend & Experience Architecture101 Edge, Mobile & IoT98 Regulatory & Data Protection Architecture99 Assurance, Audit & Model Risk98

Difficulty Any beginner intermediate advanced

2868 questions.

Quiz

A new notifications service needs customer contact data that only a twelve-year-old billing system holds. The team points it at a read replica of the billing database and ships in a week. Why does this work, and why is it still the most expensive integration they could have chosen?

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?

New services must interact with a legacy system that cannot handle their load or their pace of change. Which integration patterns apply?

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 data tooling vendor licences its product per environment plus per named seat. The platform team is about to give every pull request an ephemeral preview environment containing the full stack. Which change keeps the licence bill flat without abandoning preview environments?

A per-core database licence makes horizontal scaling more expensive than vertical. How does that change your design, and would you challenge it?

A team's licence and managed-service costs are growing faster than its infrastructure. How should it decide what to bring in-house?

An enterprise's database licensing is tied to processor cores, and a virtualisation change unexpectedly multiplies the licence cost. How should licensing influence architecture?