Here's how you can navigate the key factors in making strategic decisions for system architecture.

Just start with the user. The holy grail of any technological investment is to solve a real business problem, so we better make sure there is a problem to solve and we know as much about it as possible. More often than not, teams end up solving made-up problems, which is a massive waste of time and money. When we start with the user, it keeps us on track with a clear view of the target. Its also crucial to have larger goals chunked up into smaller ones so that we don't get lost and overwhelmed. The bigger the description of the problem, the more are the chances that everyone has a different idea of what it is. With a well-defined problem definition and well-chopped up goals, its possible to prioritize and define a technical strategy.

System architecture is a discipline that requires a deep understanding of multiple technical and business factors. My experience has taught me that addressing each aspect with a meticulous and flexible approach, while leveraging expert knowledge and continuous feedback, is key to designing a robust architecture that aligns with the organization's strategic objectives. However, the reality is that putting all of this into practice often differs greatly from how it appears on paper. Therefore, while these points are undoubtedly important, they must be tailored to the reality of the organization and the project. As part of a digital disruption strategy, this is often referred to as creating parallel realities that allow for execution.

Know that you will make bad choices due to your stupidity, ignorance, communication gaps, changing user needs, competition, innovation and many other factors. Or at least the choices you make will not always stay the best. So its critical to design the system such that the cost of course-correction down the line is minimized. Some strategies could be to avoid vendor lock-ins, technology lock-ins etc. by investing in adapters at crucial places in the system. Of course, overdoing this could lead to higher complexity and cost (adapters have cost too). So it must be balanced carefully.

Evaluate emerging technologies to align with business goals and gain competitive advantages. Ensure compatibility with existing systems for minimal disruption and enhanced efficiency. Choose scalable and flexible technologies to adapt to evolving requirements, ensuring sustainability and cost-effectiveness. Select vendors with strong support and stability. Prioritize technologies with robust community support and comprehensive documentation. Consider total cost of ownership, including maintenance and training. Ensure compliance with industry standards and robust security features. Evaluate performance metrics for anticipated workloads and choose forward-compatible technologies to prevent obsolescence.

As a system architect, it's essential to select the right technology while designing any solution. To make an informed choice, studying project requirements in detail is crucial. Remember, scalability, performance, bulk handling, and user experience are critical factors that will affect the system's current and future performance. When evaluating different technologies, you should consider factors such as performance, security, and maintainability. Proven technologies that can deliver reliable results are always a safe bet. Additionally, choose technology for your project's practicality. By following these guidelines, you can choose the right technology for your project and lead your solution to success.

Develop a clear scalability strategy to handle future growth and increased workloads. Assess the system's ability to scale horizontally and vertically, ensuring it can add resources seamlessly. Utilize cloud services for elastic scalability, allowing for dynamic resource allocation. Design with modular architecture to enable independent scaling of components. Implement load balancing and auto-scaling features to manage traffic spikes. Plan for data partitioning and sharding to distribute the load efficiently. Regularly test and optimize the system for performance under varying loads, ensuring it can handle peak usage without compromising performance.

Scalability is one of the most important component in the system design and architecture. We should make our scalability strategy depending on the non-functional requirement of the system. We should consider for the future user and data load the system is expected to have. There are different scalability strategies like vertical scaling, horizontal scaling, caching, cdn etc but not all the strategy fits all the business use case so we have to be careful about which one to choose depending upon the situation.

Security is one of the important aspect of any system architecture. The entire business is dependent on the application data and if there is any compromise with this, it will have huge impact in the organization. There are several security measures that must be implement to make the system secure such as RBAC, encryption, ssl, firewalls, rate limit to prevent ddos etc.

You have to find always a way to measure the architecture you have designed and has been implemented in order to see if it fits the requirements. It will show you how powerful your architecture is.

User experience play a vital role in any systems success or failure. If the user is not able to use the system with ease then there is no use of the powerful system design. The decision for system architecture also depends on how we plan our UX. So while designing the system architecture we should also consider how the user will get benefit from this system.

In the current day and age where tech layoffs are extremely common, always consider that the folks maintaining the current architecture will keep changing and not always be there. Whether or not you’re thinking of replacing parts of your current architecture or building from the ground up, this consideration will save you many sleepless nights. Hence it’s very popular now for organisations to opt for SAAS (Software As A Service) or PAAS (Platform As A Service) solutions to replace parts of their existing architecture as this removes the need to have hired engineers to constantly maintain and upgrade the underlying infrastructure of your different solutions.