Selecting the right architectural solution is crucial in system design, as it defines the system's structure, scalability, and maintainability. Common architectural choices include monolithic, microservices, and serverless architectures, each with its own advantages, trade-offs, and use cases. Mastery of architectural solutions allows engineers to build systems that align with both business and technical goals.
At this level, engineers understand the basics of common architectural patterns and can work within predefined structures.
- Basic Architectural Patterns: Familiarity with monolithic, microservices, and serverless architectures, understanding their basic concepts and differences.
- Simple Monolithic Applications: Ability to design or work on a basic monolithic application with a single codebase and tightly coupled components.
- Understanding of Use Cases: Awareness of common use cases for each architecture type (e.g., monolithic for smaller applications, microservices for scalability).
Engineers can distinguish between architecture types, understand use cases, and work within a monolithic structure.
At this level, engineers can make informed decisions on architectural choices based on application requirements and design simple, modular systems.
- Modular Monolithic Design: Knowledge of designing modular monolithic applications for easier maintenance and potential future migration to microservices.
- Microservices Basics: Ability to design simple microservices with clearly defined boundaries and minimal dependencies.
- Serverless Applications: Familiarity with serverless functions and services (e.g., AWS Lambda) for event-driven or low-overhead applications.
Engineers can design modular applications, create basic microservices, and work with serverless functions to handle specific tasks within a broader system.
At this advanced level, engineers can design scalable and resilient architectures, choosing the best approach for complex applications.
- Microservices Communication Patterns: Proficiency in managing communication between microservices, using patterns such as API gateways, event-driven messaging, and service discovery.
- Hybrid Architectures: Ability to design hybrid architectures that combine monolithic, microservices, and serverless elements to meet specific needs.
- Serverless Event-Driven Design: Knowledge of designing complex serverless architectures with event-driven patterns, using managed services (e.g., AWS S3, DynamoDB) to handle asynchronous processing.
Engineers can design scalable microservices, integrate hybrid solutions, and leverage event-driven serverless designs for optimized, resilient applications.
An expert in Architecture Solutions can architect complex, enterprise-grade systems using a mix of architectural patterns to maximize flexibility, scalability, and reliability.
- Microservices Governance and Scaling: Expertise in implementing microservices governance practices (e.g., service versioning, API management) and scaling strategies to manage large numbers of services.
- Cross-Architecture Orchestration: Proficiency in orchestrating and integrating multiple architecture types (monolithic, microservices, serverless) within the same system to maximize efficiency.
- Disaster Recovery and Failover: Knowledge of designing architectures with built-in disaster recovery, failover capabilities, and multi-region deployment for high availability.
- Advanced Cost Optimization for Serverless Architectures: Ability to optimize serverless applications for cost efficiency, leveraging strategies like function composition and step functions to minimize overhead.
Engineers can architect enterprise-level systems with advanced microservices governance, orchestrate cross-architecture solutions, implement disaster recovery, and optimize for cost and performance across architectures.