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2627 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 areas2627 Architecture Fundamentals81 Distributed Systems101 Data Architecture90 Cloud Architecture77 Networking86 API & Integration Architecture78 Reliability & Resilience88 Observability81 Performance & Capacity Engineering90 Security Architecture85 Cost Architecture & FinOps82 Business Architecture93 Architecture Communication91 Enterprise Architecture91 Legacy Modernization82 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

4 questions in Distributed Transactions.

  1. Distributed Transactions advanced

    A stay booking spans payment authorisation, calendar reservation, host notification and a guest confirmation email. A distributed ACID transaction is not available. How do you order the steps and what do you do when a compensation fails?

    3 min answer sagacompensationairbnbbooking
  2. Distributed Transactions advanced

    A workflow succeeds in one service, then the next service crashes before recording the event. How do transactional outbox, durable queues, retries, idempotent consumers and reconciliation each contribute, and which of them is not optional?

    2 min answer temporaloutboxdurable-executionexactly-once
  3. Distributed Transactions advanced Multiple choice

    An order at extreme e-commerce scale must reserve inventory, charge payment, create the order and notify fulfilment - across four independently deployed services. Which transaction strategy fits?

    2 min answer distributed-transactionssagatwo-phase-commitalibaba
  4. Distributed Transactions advanced

    Placing an order must reserve stock, charge the card and create a shipment across three services. Design it, and justify why not a distributed transaction.

    2 min answer sagatransactionspivotcompensation