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Quiz

2948 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 areas2948 Architecture Fundamentals91 Distributed Systems101 Data Architecture90 Cloud Architecture87 Networking96 API & Integration Architecture87 Reliability & Resilience99 Observability92 Performance & Capacity Engineering100 Security Architecture105 Cost Architecture & FinOps102 Business Architecture103 Architecture Communication102 Enterprise Architecture100 Legacy Modernization102 AI-Era Architecture106 Software Architecture & Engineering93 Architecture Patterns94 Architecture Decision-Making101 The Architect's Meta-Skills102 Delivery & Release Engineering103 Platform Engineering & Developer Experience102 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

5 questions in Performance vs Cost.

  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