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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

90 questions in Performance & Capacity.

  1. Throughput advanced

    A capacity test on a live-streaming platform at Twitch scale plateaus at 18000 requests per second however many application instances are added. Fleet CPU is 45%, the database is at 20%, and no queue is growing. What do you check before reporting that ceiling?

    3 min answer load-testingclosed-loopload-generatorephemeral-ports
  2. Throughput intermediate

    A pipeline moves from writing records one at a time to batches of 500, and throughput rises roughly twentyfold. What has been given up, and at what batch size does the trade stop paying?

    2 min answer batchingthroughputlatencyblast radius
  3. Throughput advanced

    A recommendation platform must ingest billions of interaction events daily without the ingestion path becoming a bottleneck. Which throughput techniques matter most, and which common approach limits scale?

    2 min answer throughputbatchingpartitioningingestion
  4. Throughput beginner

    A team is asked to "make the system faster" for a delivery platform. What are they actually being asked, and why does the distinction change the work?

    1 min answer zeptolatencythroughputgoals
  5. Throughput intermediate

    Throughput has plateaued and adding instances does not help. What are the candidate bottlenecks and how do you identify which?

    2 min answer throughputbottlenecksaturationscaling
  6. Throughput beginner

    Why does making every request 30% faster often leave requests per second exactly where they were, and what did the optimisation actually buy?

    3 min answer throughputlittles-lawutilisationheadroom