K4 Architect

Who it is for

For experienced developers who want to make and justify architecture decisions. A course makes nobody an architect – which is why this stage requires professional experience.

Prerequisites

K3 and at least a year of professional experience, or two years of professional experience and the placement test.

Afterward, you can

• Make architecture decisions, weigh them and record them as ADRs
• Shape systems into bounded contexts with domain-driven design
• Keep domain rules in the domain model, with ports and adapters
• Decide when CQRS and event sourcing pay off
• Build and run distributed systems with Orleans
• Secure consistency across system boundaries with outbox, inbox and idempotency
• Design Azure architectures to the Well-Architected Framework, multi-tenant ones included
• Build security and data protection into the architecture from the start
• Compare code architecture styles and justify the one that fits
• Weigh a modular monolith, microservices and virtual actors against each other
• Design data for analytics with a warehouse and a lakehouse
• Represent architecture in a team, estimate and explain it

Contents

1. 4.1

   Architecture as a decision

   quality goals, trade-offs, architecture decision records (ADRs), the C4 model, costs (FinOps)

   20 h
2. 4.2

   Strategic DDD

   domain, bounded contexts, context maps, event storming

   25 h
3. 4.3

   Tactical DDD, ports and adapters

   aggregates, value objects, domain events, rules in the domain model, dependencies pointing inward, the modular monolith

   30 h
4. 4.4

   CQRS and event sourcing

   when it pays off and when it does not, projections, versioning events

   25 h
5. 4.5

   Distributed systems with Orleans

   virtual actors, the grain as an aggregate's consistency boundary, persistence and serialization with versioning, partitioning growing state, observers and streams, clusters in Container Apps

   40 h
6. 4.6

   Integration and consistency

   outbox and inbox, process managers, idempotency, “at least once” delivery

   20 h
7. 4.7

   Azure architecture

   the Well-Architected Framework, networking, identity, high availability and disaster recovery, multi-tenancy (an instance per customer or shared), governance

   30 h
8. 4.8

   Security as architecture

   zero trust, threat modeling, data protection by design (GDPR), least privilege for identities

   20 h
9. 4.10

   Code architecture: layers, onion, hexagonal, clean, vertical slice

   the same small feature built in each style, what each protects against and what it costs, architecture tests, how it relates to the ports and adapters of 4.3

   20 h
10. 4.11

    Architecture styles and distributed systems in breadth

    layers, microservices versus a modular monolith, event-driven, serverless, SOA as history, CAP and PACELC, consistency models, cloud design patterns, micro-frontends, strangler fig and anti-corruption layer, fitness functions

    25 h
11. 4.12

    Microservices in practice

    service boundaries, synchronous and asynchronous, data per service, sagas, an API gateway with YARP, Dapr on Container Apps, observability across services, microservices or Orleans

    25 h
12. 4.13

    Data architecture

    OLTP and OLAP, data warehouse and lakehouse with Microsoft Fabric, ETL and ELT, Spark in overview

    20 h
13. 4.14

    The architect in the team

    communication and stakeholders, estimating, presenting and defending decisions, mentoring, Scrum and Kanban, enterprise architecture with TOGAF and ArchiMate in overview

    15 h
14. 4.9

    Final project

    the Kladde multi-tenant, with architecture documentation and an architecture review against a checklist

    30 h

About 345 hours in all (indicative).

Lessons

You see the text and video of every lesson here on the site after buying the course; the titles and goals are already shown. A self-study course: you work through the lessons in order and check your exercises yourself against the solutions.

You can read the first module (4.1) for free, with text and video, without signing in: so you see how the course works before you buy.

The lessons stand under their modules, in the order of the course. Click a module to open or close its lessons.

Final project: the Kladde

Certifications

An offer, never a requirement: these Microsoft exams fit this stage. You take them at Microsoft; we are not a Microsoft training partner.

• AZ-305 Azure Solutions Architect Expert

  Requires AZ-104.

Keep learning with Microsoft Learn

Microsoft's learning paths and documentation that go with this course.

• Introduction to Orleans
• Build your first Orleans app with ASP.NET Core 8.0
• Azure Architecture Center
• Azure Well-Architected Framework
• Common web application architectures
• Architecture styles
• Get started with YARP