CMA Solution Architecture Process 5

Question 1

In a multi-cloud solution architecture, which concern is most critical to address in the design to avoid vendor lock-in?

Accepted Answer

Defining abstraction layers and portable data formats across providers

Answer

Abstraction layers and portable standards (containers, open APIs, cloud-agnostic data formats) allow workloads to be migrated between providers, reducing dependency on any single vendor.

Question 2

A CMA is designing a solution that must support 10x current load within 18 months. Which architectural characteristic is most relevant to prioritize?

Accepted Answer

Horizontal Scalability

Answer

Horizontal scalability allows the solution to handle increased load by adding more instances rather than upgrading hardware, making it the primary concern for anticipated 10x growth.

Question 3

Which technique is most effective for communicating architecture decisions and their rationale to a mixed technical and non-technical audience?

Accepted Answer

Architecture Decision Records (ADRs)

Answer

Architecture Decision Records document the context, decision, rationale, and consequences in structured prose, making them accessible to both technical and business stakeholders.

Question 4

During the Opportunities and Solutions phase, what is the primary basis for sequencing work packages in the implementation roadmap?

Accepted Answer

Dependencies between building blocks, business value, and implementation risk

Answer

Roadmap sequencing is driven by logical dependencies between components, the business value each work package delivers, and risk-adjusted timing to ensure a viable transition path.

Question 5

A solution architect proposes caching as a performance optimization. Which cache invalidation challenge must be explicitly designed for?

Accepted Answer

Serving stale data to users after source data has been updated

Answer

Cache invalidation — ensuring cached data is refreshed when the underlying data changes — is the fundamental design challenge because stale data can cause correctness and consistency problems.

(CMA) Certified Master Architect Practice Test

(CMA) Certified Master Architect Practice Test

CMA Solution Architecture Process 5