PRINTABLE FIELD NOTES
Architecture tradeoffs
Use this before an interview or during a focused review.
Architecture tradeoffs
Name the invariant before selecting a service. A design is a set of explicit choices under constraints.
| Consistency versus distributed reads | Choose what may be stale and for how long. Authorization and monetary correctness usually need stricter invariants than public configuration. |
|---|---|
| Sync versus async | Synchronous work offers immediate results but couples latency and availability. Queues absorb bursts but require status tracking, idempotency and recovery. |
| Cache versus correctness | Caching can reduce latency and origin load; keys, TTL, invalidation and private-data boundaries determine safety. |
| Monolith versus microservices | A monolith can simplify transactions and operations. Services can isolate ownership and scale but add network, deployment and consistency complexity. |
| Portability versus managed value | Managed primitives reduce operations while adding platform-specific contracts. Record migration requirements before overbuilding an abstraction. |
| Reliability versus cost | Redundancy, capacity and recovery have recurring costs. Tie investment to measured failure impact and agreed objectives. |
| Centralized data versus edge compute | Running compute near users does not remove distant database round trips. Place data access and ownership deliberately. |