4. Solution Strategy¶
Help: A short summary and explanation of the fundamental decisions and solution strategies that shape the system's architecture. These include:
- Technology decisions
- Decisions about the top-level decomposition of the system (e.g., use of an architectural pattern or design pattern)
- Decisions on how to achieve key quality goals
- Relevant organizational decisions (e.g., selecting a development process or delegating certain tasks to third parties)
Motivation: These decisions form the cornerstones for your architecture. They are the basis for many other detailed decisions or implementation rules.
Form: Keep the explanation of these key decisions short. Motivate what was decided and why it was decided that way. Refer to Section 9 for more detailed architecture decision records.
4.1 Technology Decisions¶
Help: Capture the key technology choices and the reasoning behind them. These are the foundational technology picks that define the technical landscape of the system.
| Decision | Choice | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| \<Programming Language> | \<e.g., TypeScript> | \<Team expertise, type safety, ecosystem> |
| \<Application Framework> | \<e.g., Spring Boot> | \<Production-proven, enterprise support, team familiarity> |
| \<Database> | \<e.g., PostgreSQL> | \<ACID compliance, JSON support, corporate standard> |
| \<Messaging> | \<e.g., Apache Kafka> | \<High throughput, durability, event sourcing support> |
| \<Container Orchestration> | \<e.g., Kubernetes> | \<Scalability, self-healing, industry standard> |
| \<API Gateway> | \<e.g., Kong> | \<Rate limiting, authentication, corporate standard> |
4.2 Top-Level Decomposition¶
Help: Describe the approach used to decompose the system at the highest level. Which architectural patterns or styles were chosen and why?
Architectural Style¶
\<Describe the chosen architectural style (e.g., microservices, modular monolith, event-driven, layered, hexagonal) and the primary reasons for choosing it.>
Key Design Patterns¶
| Pattern | Applied Where | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| \<e.g., CQRS> | \<Order processing> | \<Separate read/write concerns for scalability> |
| \<e.g., Event Sourcing> | \<Audit trail> | \<Full history of state changes required> |
| \<e.g., API Gateway> | \<External access> | \<Single entry point, cross-cutting concerns> |
| \<e.g., Circuit Breaker> | \<External integrations> | \<Resilience against downstream failures> |
| \<e.g., Saga> | \<Distributed transactions> | \<Consistency across service boundaries> |
4.3 Approaches to Achieve Quality Goals¶
Help: Map each top quality goal (from Section 1.2) to the architectural approach chosen to satisfy it.
| Quality Goal | Architectural Approach | Details |
|---|---|---|
| \<Performance> | \<Caching, async processing> | \<Redis caching layer, message queue for heavy operations> |
| \<Availability> | \<Redundancy, health checks> | \<Multi-AZ deployment, liveness/readiness probes> |
| \<Modifiability> | \<Loose coupling, interfaces> | \<Domain-driven boundaries, contract-first API design> |
| \<Security> | \<Defense in depth> | \<OAuth 2.0, TLS, input validation, WAF> |
| \<Testability> | \<Dependency injection, ports/adapters> | \<Hexagonal architecture enables isolated testing> |
4.4 Organizational Decisions¶
Help: Document relevant organizational decisions that affect the architecture, such as development methodology, team topology, build/deploy process, or third-party involvement.
| Decision | Choice | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| \<Development Process> | \<e.g., Scrum with 2-week sprints> | \<Iterative delivery, stakeholder feedback> |
| \<CI/CD Strategy> | \<e.g., GitLab CI with automated pipelines> | \<Fast feedback, consistent deployments> |
| \<Code Review> | \<e.g., Mandatory MR reviews by 2 reviewers> | \<Quality assurance, knowledge sharing> |
| \<Third-Party Services> | \<e.g., Auth0 for identity management> | \<Reduce build effort, industry-standard security> |
| \<Monitoring> | \<e.g., Datadog APM + ELK Stack> | \<Full observability across services> |
Based on the arc42 architecture template (https://arc42.org).
Created by Dr. Peter Hruschka and Dr. Gernot Starke.
Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.