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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

91 questions in Architecture Decision-Making.

  1. Performance vs Cost advanced

    A streaming platform can halve latency by doubling infrastructure cost. How should this trade-off be evaluated?

    2 min answer performancecostbusiness-impactsegmentation
  2. Performance vs Cost intermediate

    A team can make a workload ten times faster by tripling its infrastructure cost. What determines whether that is worth it?

    2 min answer databrickscostperformancethresholds
  3. Performance vs Cost advanced

    Alibaba reported a peak of 583000 orders per second during Singles' Day 2020, far above its ordinary daily rate. A retailer with a 40x annual peak asks whether it should provision for peak all year, since that is what the big platforms clearly do. What did a platform in that position actually buy, and where does copying it go wrong?

    2 min answer alibabapeak-capacitydegradationrehearsal
  4. Performance vs Cost intermediate

    Finance asks why your services run at 55% utilisation rather than 90%. What is your answer?

    2 min answer utilisationheadroomqueueinglatency
  5. Performance vs Cost intermediate

    Finance offers to fund a three-year committed-use discount covering most of the compute bill in exchange for a locked instance family and quantity, and engineering agrees. What has the architecture given up, and when does that bill arrive?

    3 min answer costcommitmentslock-inreversibility
  6. Single vs Multi-Region advanced

    A collaborative product must decide between single-region, multi-region read replicas, and multi-region writable. What should decide it?

    2 min answer multi-regionlatencycomplexitylocal-first
  7. Single vs Multi-Region advanced

    A stakeholder asks for multi-region. What three questions do you ask before agreeing?

    2 min answer multi-regionresidencylatencyavailability
  8. Single vs Multi-Region advanced

    A team must decide whether to run in one region or several. What evidence justifies multi-region, and what does it cost?

    2 min answer flyiomulti-regionlatencyavailability
  9. Reliability vs Complexity advanced

    A proposed architecture is more reliable in theory and substantially more complex to operate. How should that be evaluated?

    2 min answer reliabilitycomplexityoperated-reliabilityfailure-modes
  10. Reliability vs Complexity advanced

    A team can improve availability by adding several components, each of which is itself a failure point. How should that be evaluated?

    2 min answer railwayreliabilitycomplexityfailure-modes
  11. Reliability vs Complexity advanced

    Give an example of a reliability mechanism that made a system less reliable, and explain the mechanism.

    2 min answer reliabilitycomplexityamplificationautomation
  12. Reversibility intermediate

    A team must decide quickly under uncertainty. How should decisions be classified so that speed is applied where it is safe?

    2 min answer growwreversibilityspeeddecisions