Architectural Goals and Constraints Flashcards
7 cards from real CPSA practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Architectural Goals and Constraints flashcards as text
Which technique best helps architects identify conflicting quality goals early in a project?
Answer: Quality attribute scenario workshops
Quality attribute scenario workshops surface conflicts between competing goals like performance vs. security before design decisions are locked in.
A system must handle both real-time trading and batch reporting. These requirements create what type of architectural tension?
Answer: A tradeoff between latency and throughput
Real-time trading demands low latency while batch reporting benefits from high throughput, creating a classic latency-vs-throughput tradeoff.
What does a binding time constraint specify in software architecture?
Answer: When a design decision can be changed or must be fixed
Binding time constraints define whether a design decision is fixed at compile time, deployment time, or can be changed at runtime.
A regulatory constraint requires all data to remain within a specific country's borders. How does this most directly affect architectural decisions?
Answer: It restricts deployment topology and cloud region selection
Data residency regulations directly constrain where infrastructure can be hosted, limiting cloud regions and deployment topology choices.
In CPSA terminology, what distinguishes an architectural goal from a functional requirement?
Answer: Architectural goals address quality properties; functional requirements describe system behavior
Architectural goals focus on quality attributes like performance, security, and maintainability, while functional requirements describe what the system must do.
Which stakeholder group most commonly introduces compliance-based architectural constraints?
Answer: Legal and regulatory bodies
Legal and regulatory bodies impose compliance constraints such as GDPR, HIPAA, or SOX that architects must incorporate into system design.
What is the primary purpose of documenting architectural constraints explicitly in architecture documentation?
Answer: To prevent future architects from making decisions that violate non-negotiable boundaries
Explicit constraint documentation ensures that future architects and developers understand which boundaries cannot be crossed during evolution or maintenance.