Build vs. Buy vs. Cloud vs. On Premise Trade Offs Questions
Understanding key trade-offs in technology decision-making: (1) Build vs. Buy - custom development flexibility vs. packaged software speed/cost, (2) Cloud vs. On-Premise - operational burden, control, scalability, security, cost, (3) SaaS vs. Licensed - flexibility, upgrade frequency, customization options. Understanding implications for cost, time-to-value, flexibility, control, and ongoing support.
MediumTechnical
0 practiced
Explain vendor lock-in in cloud contexts. Provide six practical indicators that a project is locked into a specific cloud provider (for example heavy use of proprietary managed services) and four mitigation strategies a Solutions Architect can propose during design to reduce lock-in risk while keeping operational efficiency.
HardTechnical
0 practiced
A company has 12 point solutions (CRM, billing, analytics, support) acquired over several years. The leadership wants your recommendation: integrate the landscape, replace with a single suite, or build custom middleware. Present a structured analysis covering consolidation cost, integration cost, vendor lock-in risk, business continuity, time-to-value, and organizational impact. Recommend an option and justify assumptions.
MediumBehavioral
0 practiced
Describe how you would explain to a non-technical CFO why a 'build' option with higher short-term cost may produce better ROI long-term compared to purchasing a 'buy' SaaS offering. What metrics, charts, and narrative would you use (TCO curves, break-even analysis, sensitivity to lock-in, time-to-market implications), and how would you present risk?
MediumTechnical
0 practiced
Write a Terraform module (HCL) that provisions an AWS S3 bucket with server-side encryption enabled, versioning turned on, and a lifecycle rule to transition objects older than a configurable number of days to a cold storage class (e.g., Glacier). Include inputs for bucket name and lifecycle days, and include outputs for bucket ARN. Keep the module minimal but production-sensible.
MediumTechnical
0 practiced
You're designing a container platform for a customer that currently runs on-prem VMs and is evaluating either moving to a managed Kubernetes service or running Kubernetes in their data center. Create a detailed decision checklist covering networking (CNI), storage (CSI), logging/monitoring, upgrade and lifecycle management, security policies, backups, and supportability. Include non-technical factors such as staff skillset and compliance.
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