CTE System Architecture & Design 2

Question 1

In a carrier-grade telecom architecture, what does the term 'five nines' availability mean?

Accepted Answer

99.999% uptime, allowing ~5.26 minutes downtime per year

Answer

Five nines (99.999%) availability equates to approximately 5.26 minutes of allowable downtime per year, the standard benchmark for carrier-grade systems.

Question 2

Which architectural pattern best supports independent scaling of individual telecom microservices like billing, provisioning, and routing?

Accepted Answer

Microservices architecture with containerization

Answer

Microservices architecture with containerization allows each telecom function to be deployed, scaled, and updated independently, reducing blast radius of failures.

Question 3

A telecommunications company is designing a network that must survive the loss of an entire geographic region. Which design principle should be prioritized?

Accepted Answer

Geographic redundancy with active-active or active-passive failover

Answer

Geographic redundancy ensures that regional disasters do not cause a total outage, using active-active or active-passive configurations across dispersed sites.

Question 4

What is the primary function of a Session Border Controller (SBC) in a VoIP network architecture?

Accepted Answer

To manage and secure real-time communication sessions at network borders

Answer

An SBC controls the signaling and media streams of VoIP calls at network borders, providing security, interoperability, and QoS enforcement.

Question 5

In telecom network design, what is the role of a Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF)?

Accepted Answer

To define and enforce QoS policies and charging rules for data sessions

Answer

PCRF is a core component of the LTE/4G architecture that determines QoS policies and charging rules for subscriber data sessions in real time.

(CTE) Certified Telecommunications Executive Practice Test

(CTE) Certified Telecommunications Executive Practice Test

CTE System Architecture & Design 2