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
A hospital system requires 99.999% uptime for its patient monitoring module. Which architectural pattern most directly addresses this goal?
Answer: Active-active redundancy with automatic failover
Active-active redundancy with automatic failover eliminates single points of failure, directly supporting extreme availability requirements like five-nines uptime.
When a budget constraint limits the team to open-source middleware only, this is best classified as which type of constraint?
Answer: Organizational constraint
Budget limitations set by management or finance represent organizational constraints that restrict architectural choices to cost-appropriate technologies.
Which approach is most appropriate when two critical quality goals appear mutually exclusive?
Answer: Analyze scenarios to find a design point that acceptably balances both goals
Scenario-based analysis helps architects find design solutions that achieve an acceptable balance rather than fully sacrificing either quality attribute.
What role do business goals play in defining architectural constraints?
Answer: Business goals translate into quality requirements that constrain architectural decisions
Business goals such as time-to-market, cost efficiency, or competitive differentiation translate into quality requirements that bound what architectural solutions are acceptable.
A legacy mainframe integration requirement forces the use of COBOL-based batch interfaces. This exemplifies which constraint category?
Answer: Technical constraint due to existing system dependencies
Existing system dependencies that force specific technology choices are technical constraints, as they arise from the current technology landscape rather than policy.
How should an architect handle a constraint that is discovered to be based on a false assumption?
Answer: Document the finding, validate with stakeholders, and renegotiate the constraint if the assumption is confirmed false
Constraints based on false assumptions should be surfaced to stakeholders for validation and potential revision, as they may unnecessarily limit architectural options.
Which metric best measures whether an architectural goal of 'high availability' has been achieved?
Answer: Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) and Mean Time To Recovery (MTTR)
MTBF and MTTR are the standard quantitative measures for availability, capturing how often failures occur and how quickly the system recovers.