Solutions
Turning architecture patterns into real-world digital platforms requires more than just building blocks. It needs the right views—business, solution, and deployment—presented at the right level of detail (L0–L3) for each audience. This section shows how these perspectives connect so stakeholders, architects, and engineers collaborate effectively.
Explore Architecture Layers
Technical Discovery of Business Requirements
A structured checklist to guide discovery conversations across business goals, landscape, API management, integration, security, performance, deployment, and delivery.
1. Business Objectives
- Core business needs and goals — objectives and success criteria
- Stakeholders and end‑users — personas, roles, decision makers
- Pain points and gaps — where the current solution/platform fails
- Future priorities and roadmap — 12–36 month outlook
- Existing business systems — CRM, HR, data sources, strategic vendors
- High‑level architecture — diagrams, written requirements, solution overviews
2. Current Technical Landscape
- Platforms and tools — API Mgmt, Integration, Identity in place?
- Connected systems and channels — web, mobile, portals, POS, IoT
- Deployment & infrastructure — K8s/VMs; on‑prem vs. cloud
- CI/CD approach — build, deploy, testing workflows and tools
3. API Management Requirements
- Internal vs. external APIs — partner/public/internal
- Developer portal/marketplace — discovery, onboarding, try‑it, monetization
- Gateway architecture — centralized, domain, micro‑gateway, hybrid
- Async protocols — MQTT, WS, SSE, AMQP, Kafka/AsyncAPI
- Policies & standards — rate limits, throttling, caching, quotas, style guides
4. Integration Requirements
- Patterns — mapping/transformation, routing, protocol bridging
- Back‑ends & connectors — SAP/Oracle, Salesforce/Workday, legacy, DBs, SaaS
- Integration tech — ESB, iPaaS, custom code
- Message formats — JSON, XML, EDI, CSV, Avro/Protobuf
- Development tech — REST/SOAP/GraphQL; Java/.NET/Python; SQL/NoSQL
- Protocols — HTTP/HTTPS, AMQP, MQTT
- Lifecycle — versioning, promotion, testing, release processes
- Monitoring & troubleshooting — tracking, logs, traces, alerts
5. Security & Identity
- AuthN/AuthZ — OAuth2, OIDC, SAML; workload identity
- SSO & MFA — SAML, OIDC, FIDO/WebAuthn, social/federated
- Token & key management — expiry, rotation, secrets, PKI/mTLS
- API security — keys, encryption, threat protection, egress controls
- Threats & protections — injection, XML threats, DDoS, bots
6. Sizing & Performance
- Transaction volumes — current/expected TPS
- Payload size & throughput — typical sizes, concurrency
- Asset counts — number of APIs/integration flows
- Latency & SLOs — response targets (p95/p99), error budgets
- Seasonality — peak periods (Black Friday, month‑end)
- Active users — MAU/DAU; IAM scale
7. Cloud vs. On‑Prem
- Deployment preference — SaaS, private cloud, on‑prem, hybrid
- Cloud strategy — providers/services; multi‑cloud plans
8. Team & Implementation
- Roles & responsibilities — leads, developers, architects, DevOps/Platform
- Timeline & resources — team size, duration, milestones
- Executive sponsorship — C‑level involvement
- Past experience — prior platform/product work
- Approach — in‑house vs partner; low‑code vs pro‑code; skills
9. Additional Considerations
- Compliance & governance — GDPR, HIPAA, PCI‑DSS; data sovereignty
- Observability — analytics, logging, tracing, alerting, KPIs/SLOs
- Scale & HA — SLAs, redundancy, load balancing, DR/BCP, failover
Audience & Roles
These views serve different stakeholders at the right level of detail, from business intent to operational reality.
Business Stakeholders
- 🏢 Understand how an application interacts with other applications in their domain
- 🧭 Focus on value, capabilities, KPIs (use Business Architecture L0/L1)
Architecture Review Board / Design Authority
- ✅ Validate conformance to standards and guidelines
- 🛡️ Review patterns, security, governance, NFRs (Solution/Deployment L1/L2)
Software Engineering Leaders
- 🎯 Assess how the solution addresses the problem and the trade‑offs
- 🧩 Plan dependencies, staffing, and risks (Solution Architecture L1/L2)
Software Engineers
- 🛠️ Build or evolve applications with clear interfaces and flows
- 📐 Use contracts, sequences, templates, golden paths (Solution L2 / Deployment L2/L3)
Operations Engineers
- ⚙️ Understand runtime topology to diagnose and resolve issues
- 📊 Use environments, SLOs, telemetry, networking, runbooks (Deployment L2/L3)
Business Architecture
Focuses on intent and outcomes, not technical implementation. It clarifies the value a platform must deliver and aligns technical decisions with business goals.
Key Elements
- 🎯 Goals and KPIs (time‑to‑market, customer experience, compliance)
- 👥 Stakeholders and user groups
- ⚡ Capabilities and journeys that create value
- 🔧 Existing systems and constraints
- 🛡️ Non‑functional drivers (regulatory, privacy, SLAs)
Example Progression
High‑level business units, interactions, goals (no technology references)
Introduce core systems (CRM, ERP, IdP) and high‑level interactions
Solution Architecture
Bridges business intent with technical design—showing how applications, services, and integrations come together to solve business problems.
Key Elements
- 👥 Major business entities (customers, orders, payments)
- ⚙️ Core solution components (API gateway, identity, integration layer)
- 🔄 Integration patterns (REST vs. events, sync vs. async)
- 📋 Standards and protocols (HTTP, OAuth2, OIDC, SAML)
- 🛡️ Cross‑cutting concerns (security, governance, observability)
- ☁️ Runtime choices (cloud, on‑premises, hybrid)
Architecture Layers
Security Architecture
Comprehensive security framework that protects applications, data, and infrastructure across all layers of the platform.
Security Layers
- 👤 Identity & Access Management (OAuth2, OIDC, SAML)
- 🛡️ Threat Protection (WAF, rate limiting, DDoS)
- 🔒 Data Encryption (at rest, in transit, in use)
- 📊 Security Monitoring & Logging
- 🚫 Zero-Trust Architecture
- 📋 Compliance & Governance
Security Patterns
Security Framework Components
Authentication
Verify user identities and manage sessions
Authorization
Control access to resources and operations
Confidentiality
Protect sensitive data from unauthorized access
Integrity
Ensure data accuracy and prevent tampering
Auditability
Track and log security-relevant events
Incident Response
Detect, respond to, and recover from breaches
Deployment Architecture
Describes operational reality—how the platform is hosted, scaled, and secured in different environments. Essential for DevOps and operations teams.
Infrastructure Elements
- 🌐 Environments (dev, test, stage, prod)
- 🏗️ Topology (clusters, nodes, namespaces)
- 🔒 Network zones (DMZ, private subnets, VPNs)
- ⚙️ Platform services (ingress, service mesh, secrets)
- 🔄 HA/DR (replicas, failover, backups)
- 🛡️ Security controls (WAF, mTLS, firewalls)
Operational Excellence
Other Architectural Considerations
CI/CD Flow
Define how code moves from commit to production with tools, stages, and automations.
- Tools: GitHub, GitLab, Jenkins, Azure DevOps
- Stages: Build, test, deploy
- Automations: Quality checks, container builds, rollbacks
Observability & Monitoring
Comprehensive visibility into system health, performance, and behavior.
- Metrics: Application and infrastructure monitoring
- Logging: Centralized log aggregation and analysis
- Tracing: Distributed request tracking
- Alerting: Proactive issue detection and notification
Domain-Specific Views
Industry-specific diagrams and considerations for specialized domains.
How It All Connects
Start with Business (L0/L1)
Define goals, value, capabilities, and stakeholder needs
Move to Solution (L1/L2)
Show how patterns and building blocks create the solution
Refine with Details (L2)
Add standards, security, and integration specifics
Finalize Deployment (L2/L3)
Document operations, scaling, and security measures
Each step builds on the last, ensuring traceability from business value to technical execution.