CPSA Architectural Goals and Constraints 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: An e-commerce platform must remain operational during Black Friday peak loads. Which architectural goal does this most directly represent?
- Scalability under predictable load spikes (Correct answer)
- Security against payment fraud
- Interoperability with third-party logistics systems
- Portability across cloud providers
Correct answer: Scalability under predictable load spikes
Maintaining operation under known peak load periods is a scalability goal, requiring the architecture to expand capacity to meet predictable demand surges.
Question 2: How does the Conway's Law principle relate to architectural constraints?
- Organizational team structure creates an implicit constraint that shapes system architecture (Correct answer)
- Conway's Law defines the maximum number of microservices allowed
- Conway's Law establishes security boundaries between components
- Conway's Law specifies database normalization requirements
Correct answer: Organizational team structure creates an implicit constraint that shapes system architecture
Conway's Law states that systems mirror the communication structure of the organizations that design them, making org structure an implicit architectural constraint.
Question 3: A system's audit requirement mandates that every data change be logged with a timestamp and user identity. This requirement primarily impacts which quality attribute?
- Accountability and traceability (Correct answer)
- Throughput and performance
- Portability across platforms
- Ease of initial installation
Correct answer: Accountability and traceability
Comprehensive audit logging directly supports accountability and traceability, enabling investigation of who changed what data and when.
Question 4: What is the most effective way to communicate architectural goals and constraints to a development team?
- Architecture decision records (ADRs) combined with living architecture documentation (Correct answer)
- A single email sent at project kickoff
- Verbal briefings during code reviews only
- Embedding all constraints in the project's build scripts
Correct answer: Architecture decision records (ADRs) combined with living architecture documentation
ADRs capture the rationale behind constraints while living documentation keeps them current, ensuring developers understand both what the constraints are and why they exist.
Question 5: When a new regulatory requirement emerges mid-project, what is the architect's first responsibility?
- Assess the impact on existing architectural decisions and document affected areas (Correct answer)
- Immediately halt all development until the regulation is fully understood
- Delegate the regulatory analysis entirely to the legal team
- Implement compliance features without informing other stakeholders
Correct answer: Assess the impact on existing architectural decisions and document affected areas
Impact assessment identifies which architectural decisions are affected by the new constraint, enabling informed conversations with stakeholders about scope and schedule changes.
Question 6: Which architectural quality attribute is most directly threatened when a system must integrate with many heterogeneous external systems?
- Interoperability (Correct answer)
- Testability
- Deployability
- Usability
Correct answer: Interoperability
Integrating with diverse external systems directly tests interoperability, requiring the architecture to manage varying protocols, data formats, and communication patterns.
Question 7: An architecture review reveals that a goal of 'zero downtime deployments' conflicts with the current monolithic deployment unit. What is the most appropriate architectural response?
- Decompose the monolith into independently deployable units to enable rolling deployments (Correct answer)
- Accept downtime as unavoidable and update the SLA accordingly
- Use a faster server to reduce deployment time to an acceptable level
- Deploy during off-peak hours only to minimize user impact
Correct answer: Decompose the monolith into independently deployable units to enable rolling deployments
Achieving zero downtime deployments requires independently deployable units so that portions of the system can be updated without taking the entire application offline.
CPSA Architectural Goals and Constraints 5
An e-commerce platform must remain operational during Black Friday peak loads.
Which architectural goal does this most directly represent?