System Architecture & Design Flashcards
7 cards from real TOC practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 System Architecture & Design flashcards as text
Which security architecture principle applies the concept of granting users only the minimum permissions required to perform their job function?
Answer: Principle of least privilege
The principle of least privilege limits user access rights to only what is strictly necessary, reducing the attack surface in talent systems.
A TOC is evaluating an HRIS integration that uses webhook callbacks. Webhooks are most appropriate when:
Answer: The source system should push notifications when events occur
Webhooks enable event-driven notifications where the source system pushes data to the receiver immediately when a defined event occurs.
In talent platform design, which approach to handling assessment versioning allows historical results to remain valid when the assessment evolves?
Answer: Storing the assessment version with each response record
Tagging each response with the assessment version used ensures historical data can still be correctly interpreted even after the assessment changes.
A talent optimization system needs to generate a 'job fit' score combining multiple data sources in near-real-time. Which architecture is best suited?
Answer: Stream processing pipeline
Stream processing continuously ingests and processes data as it arrives, enabling near-real-time computation of composite scores.
When designing talent data pipelines for a multinational organization, which concern is unique to cross-border data transfers?
Answer: Data residency and sovereignty regulations
Data residency regulations (e.g., GDPR, data localization laws) restrict where employee data can be stored or transferred across national boundaries.
A talent system architect proposes using a graph database to model organizational relationships. The PRIMARY advantage over a relational database for this use case is:
Answer: Native representation of complex hierarchical and peer relationships
Graph databases excel at traversing complex networks of relationships (reporting structures, collaboration networks) that are cumbersome in relational tables.
In the context of talent optimization platform design, a 'blue-green deployment' strategy means:
Answer: Running two identical environments and switching traffic to the updated one
Blue-green deployment maintains two production environments and shifts traffic to the updated environment, enabling zero-downtime releases.