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Quiz

126 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 areas126 Architecture Fundamentals2 Distributed Systems26 Data Architecture23 Cloud Architecture19 Networking3 API & Integration Architecture1 Reliability & Resilience4 Observability3 Performance & Capacity Engineering3 Security Architecture16 Cost Architecture & FinOps3 Business Architecture2 Architecture Communication2 Enterprise Architecture1 Legacy Modernization2 AI-Era Architecture3 Software Architecture & Engineering3 Architecture Patterns3 Architecture Decision-Making6 The Architect's Meta-Skills1
Difficulty Any beginner intermediate advanced

126 questions.

  1. Circuit Breakers advanced

    After adding circuit breakers, a partial outage now lasts three times longer than it used to. What is likely happening?

    1 min answer circuit-breakerrecoveryoscillation
  2. Cloud Architecture intermediate

    A team tells you backups run nightly and are retained for 30 days. What is missing from that answer?

    2 min answer backupdisaster-recoveryverificationransomware
  3. Cloud Architecture intermediate Multiple choice

    A team wants to build a new internal API on serverless functions. It will serve steady traffic of about 200 requests per second during business hours. What do you advise?

    2 min answer serverlesscontainerscostdecision-making
  4. Cloud Architecture advanced

    In the 2017 AWS S3 outage, the status page could not report the outage because it depended on S3. What does that tell you about designing status and control systems?

    2 min answer blast-radiuscontrol-planedependenciescase-study
  5. Cloud Architecture advanced

    The business asks for "multi-region" after a regional outage. Before agreeing, what do you need to establish, and what are you actually signing up for?

    2 min answer multi-regiondrcostconsistency
  6. Cloud Databases intermediate Multiple choice

    A serverless API works in testing and fails under load with connection errors. The database is at 5% CPU. Explain and fix.

    2 min answer serverlessconnectionsproxyscaling
  7. Cloud Governance intermediate

    A DR test fails: the secondary region cannot launch enough instances. What happened, and what standing checks prevent it?

    2 min answer quotasdrgovernance
  8. Load Balancing intermediate

    Every deployment produces a small spike of 502s that the team has learned to ignore. Fix it.

    2 min answer drainingdeploymentgraceful-shutdown
  9. Cloud Migration advanced

    You are asked to lead a migration of 300 applications to cloud. What happens in the first ninety days?

    2 min answer migrationdiscoverysequencingwaves
  10. Cloud Storage intermediate

    Choose storage for four workloads: a Postgres data directory, user-uploaded images, a shared build cache, and seven years of audit records.

    2 min answer storageblockobjecttiering
  11. Architecture Communication intermediate

    In a design review, a respected senior engineer proposes an approach you believe is wrong. The room defers to them. How do you handle it?

    2 min answer communicationdisagreementinfluencereview
  12. Architecture Communication beginner

    You have designed a system. Explain the same architecture to a CEO, an engineering manager and an engineer. What changes?

    2 min answer communicationstakeholdersinfluence