What is the difference between a Designer and an Architect. I had this question in mind.
And years ago, I read in a book – “Designer designs the functional feature of a system. Architecture is concerned about the non-functional feature of the solution. Designer thinks what should happen if a user clicks on a button. Architect thinks what could happen if thousands of users click on the button simultaneously.”
It’s quite daunting to think what really would happen when thousands of users are there on your website and they click on a link or a button. Just imagine, people click on Google’s search button 3.5 billion times in a day. Facebook has 1.7 billion daily active users.
Don’t worry, just like NLP (neuro linguistic programming) models you can model your architecture following established patterns, reference architectures, blueprints and best practices.
For real-time streaming, look at how Spotify does it; for guidance on real-time calculation and optimization look up to Uber, for API patterns look at Stripe. These are all examples of Solution Blueprint. And the list is as long as your experience.
Every cloud platform (Google, AWS, Azure) provides reference architectures for specific solution scenario’s (IoT, Analytics etc) and a “well-architect” framework.
Just a word of caution. Every architecture is unique in terms of business intent, legacy footprint, integration ecosystem and stakeholder expectations.
Best Architects fuse the patterns judiciously with the business context to create a unique Architecture that is grounded on proven principles, patterns and ready to work in the specific business context.