Technical Architect Course

Lesson 1 • Architecture in the SDLC

Maps architectural activities to software delivery lifecycle phases. Shows how architecture integrates with agile and waterfall processes.

Lesson 2 • Core Architectural Concepts

Introduces structures, views, and decisions as fundamental building blocks. Provides shared language used throughout the course.

Lesson 3 • Defining the Architect Role

Clarifies what technical architects do versus developers and managers. Sets the professional context for all subsequent chapters.

Lesson 1 • Architecturally Significant Requirements

Identifies which requirements most constrain or shape the architecture. Focuses design effort on high-impact decisions early.

Lesson 2 • Quality Attribute Scenarios

Teaches the scenario-based method for specifying quality requirements precisely. Scenarios become acceptance criteria for architectural decisions.

Lesson 3 • Capturing Architectural Requirements

Distinguishes functional from non-functional requirements and their architectural impact. Establishes the input baseline for all design work.

Lesson 1 • Event-Driven and Reactive Patterns

Introduces event-driven, publish-subscribe, and CQRS patterns for asynchronous systems. Links these patterns to scalability and loose coupling goals.

Lesson 2 • Serverless and Edge Patterns

Explores function-as-a-service and edge-computing architectural styles. Evaluates cost, latency, and operational trade-offs versus traditional hosting.

Lesson 3 • Monolithic Architecture Patterns

Examines layered, modular monolith, and pipe-and-filter styles. Establishes baseline patterns before distributed alternatives are introduced.

Lesson 4 • Service-Oriented Patterns

Covers service-oriented architecture and microservices decomposition strategies. Connects service granularity decisions to maintainability and deployment trade-offs.

Lesson 1 • Architectural Views and Viewpoints

Applies the 4+1 and C4 model view frameworks to structure documentation. Teaches selecting the right view for each stakeholder concern.

Lesson 2 • Communicating Architecture to Stakeholders

Develops skills for presenting architecture verbally and visually to diverse audiences. Connects communication effectiveness to stakeholder alignment.

Lesson 3 • Architecture Decision Records

Introduces ADRs as lightweight records of key design choices and their rationale. Builds a traceable decision history for the system.

Lesson 1 • Networking and Security Architecture

Covers virtual networks, segmentation, and zero-trust security models for cloud environments. Connects network design to availability and compliance requirements.

Lesson 2 • Resilience and Disaster Recovery Design

Designs for high availability, fault tolerance, and recovery objectives. Applies redundancy and failover patterns to meet availability quality attributes.

Lesson 3 • Cloud Service and Deployment Models

Surveys IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, and public, private, and hybrid deployment options. Provides the vocabulary for cloud architecture decisions.

Lesson 4 • Cloud-Native Design Principles

Applies the twelve-factor app methodology and cloud-native patterns to system design. Links these principles to scalability and operational resilience.

Lesson 1 • Data Modelling Fundamentals

Covers conceptual, logical, and physical data modelling techniques. Provides the foundation for all storage and integration decisions.

Lesson 2 • Data Governance and Quality

Establishes policies for data ownership, lineage, quality, and access control. Ensures data architecture meets regulatory and business trust requirements.

Lesson 3 • Data Integration and Pipelines

Designs ETL, ELT, and streaming data pipelines for batch and real-time needs. Connects integration patterns to analytics and operational system requirements.

Lesson 4 • Relational and Non-Relational Storage

Compares relational, document, key-value, graph, and time-series databases. Guides technology selection based on access patterns and scale.

Lesson 1 • Data Protection and Cryptography

Applies encryption, key management, and data masking to protect sensitive data. Links cryptographic choices to compliance and performance trade-offs.

Lesson 2 • Security Review and Compliance Alignment

Conducts architecture security reviews and maps controls to compliance frameworks. Closes the loop between design decisions and audit requirements.

Lesson 3 • Authentication and Authorisation Patterns

Designs identity, authentication, and authorisation architectures for modern systems. Covers federated identity, OAuth flows, and role-based access control.

Lesson 4 • Threat Modelling

Applies STRIDE and attack tree methods to identify and prioritise threats. Produces a threat model that drives security control selection.

Lesson 1 • Architecture Roadmapping

Creates a multi-horizon architecture roadmap aligned to business strategy. Communicates future-state architecture to leadership and engineering teams.

Lesson 2 • Architecture Governance Models

Compares centralised, federated, and enabling governance structures. Selects the model that balances consistency with team autonomy.

Lesson 3 • Evolutionary Architecture Strategies

Applies strangler fig, branch-by-abstraction, and incremental migration patterns. Enables safe system evolution without big-bang rewrites.

Lesson 4 • Fitness Functions and Metrics

Defines measurable fitness functions to verify architectural properties continuously. Connects automated checks to quality attribute scenarios from Chapter 2.