{"id":9,"date":"2026-04-16T09:51:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T09:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/golgappa.site\/comments\/?p=9"},"modified":"2026-04-16T09:51:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T09:51:10","slug":"problem-statement-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/golgappa.site\/comments\/problem-statement-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Problem Statement 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Complex IaaS Problem Statement: Global Enterprise CRM Deployment<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In accordance with your requirements for a Complex<\/strong> scenario involving New Infrastructure Deployment<\/strong> on Azure IaaS<\/strong>, here is the problem statement designed to test your architectural and service delivery skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

1. CAF Strategy & Plan (Business Stakeholder Persona)<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  • Business Motivation:<\/strong> “Our organization is launching a proprietary, high-performance CRM to support our expansion into the European market. Due to strict data sovereignty laws and legacy application dependencies, we cannot use PaaS; we require full control over the operating system and networking stack.”<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Business Outcomes:<\/strong> The solution must support 10,000 concurrent users with a target Service Level Agreement (SLA) of 99.99% availability<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Workload Profile:<\/strong> A distributed, 3-tier monolithic application consisting of a Web Front-end, an Application Logic layer, and a heavy SQL-based Database backend.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    2. CAF Ready & Adopt (Landing Zone)<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
      \n
    • Requirement:<\/strong> The infrastructure must be deployed into a Hub-and-Spoke<\/strong> landing zone. You are responsible for the “Spoke” design, assuming the “Hub” already provides centralized firewalling and ExpressRoute connectivity.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

      3. Discovery Report: Required Business Logic (Technical Architect Persona)<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

      Because this is a new deployment, this report defines the High-Level Design (HLD)<\/strong> and Low-Level Design (LLD)<\/strong> requirements of the application software provided by the dev team:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

        \n
      • Component Description:<\/strong>\n
          \n
        • Web Tier:<\/strong> 4x Windows Server 2022 instances (IIS).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
        • App Tier:<\/strong> 4x Ubuntu 22.04 LTS instances running Java-based middleware.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
        • Database Tier:<\/strong> A 2-node SQL Server 2022 Failover Cluster Instance (FCI) on Windows Server, requiring Shared Storage<\/strong> and high IOPS.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n
        • Application HLD:<\/strong> The app uses a synchronous communication model. The Web tier calls the App tier via a REST API, and the App tier communicates with the DB via a dedicated service account.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
        • Application LLD (Requirements):<\/strong>\n
            \n
          • Web\/App VMs require at least 8 vCPUs and 32GB RAM.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
          • The Database requires 16 vCPUs, 128GB RAM, and sub-millisecond disk latency.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

            4. Source Workflow Diagram (Logic Flow)<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
              \n
            1. User Access:<\/strong> External users hit a public-facing entry point via HTTPS (Port 443).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
            2. Web-to-App:<\/strong> The Web servers forward requests to the Application servers on Port 8080.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
            3. App-to-DB:<\/strong> The Application servers query the SQL Database cluster on Port 1433.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
            4. Admin Access:<\/strong> Developers require secure RDP\/SSH access for monthly patching.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

              5. WAF Pillars (Constraints)<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
                \n
              • WAF Security:<\/strong>\n
                  \n
                • Identity:<\/strong> All VM login access must be governed by Azure Entra ID<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
                • Traffic:<\/strong> Implement a Zero-Trust<\/strong> model using Network Security Groups (NSGs) and Application Security Groups (ASGs). No direct internet access is allowed for App or DB tiers.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
                • Secrets:<\/strong> Disk encryption keys and SQL credentials must be stored in Azure Key Vault<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n
                • WAF Reliability:<\/strong> The design must survive a Zone failure<\/strong>. You must use Availability Zones (AZs) for all tiers.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
                • WAF Cost Optimization:<\/strong> The monthly budget for this spoke is $8,000 USD<\/strong>. You must use Azure Reserved Instances<\/strong> and Azure Hybrid Benefit<\/strong> calculations where applicable.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
                • WAF Operational Excellence:<\/strong> The infrastructure must be monitored via Azure Monitor<\/strong>, with automated alerts for VM heartbeats and Disk space.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

                  6. Technical Boundary<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
                    \n
                  • Strictly IaaS:<\/strong> You are forbidden from using Azure SQL Database (PaaS) or Azure App Service. Everything must run on Virtual Machines<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
                  • Networking:<\/strong> You must define the VNet CIDR, Subnetting (Web, App, DB, and Management), and Load Balancing (Internal vs. External).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
                    \n\n\n\n

                    The Challenge (Your Deliverables)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

                    To complete this design phase, you must now produce:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                      \n
                    1. Target State HLD:<\/strong> The high-level Azure IaaS architecture.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
                    2. Target State LLD:<\/strong> Detailed configurations (VNet CIDR, Subnet ranges, VM SKUs like D-Series or E-Series, and Disk types like Premium SSD v2 or Ultra Disk).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
                    3. Azure Workflow Diagram:<\/strong> A description of how traffic flows securely through your Azure design.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
                    4. Component Mapping:<\/strong> A table mapping the dev team’s requirements to specific Azure IaaS services.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

                      Are you satisfied with this problem statement, and would you like to proceed with creating these deliverables?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                      Complex IaaS Problem Statement: Global Enterprise CRM Deployment In accordance with your requirements for a Complex scenario involving New Infrastructure Deployment on Azure IaaS, here is the problem statement designed to test your architectural and service delivery skills. 1. CAF Strategy & Plan (Business Stakeholder Persona) 2. CAF Ready & Adopt (Landing Zone) 3. Discovery […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/golgappa.site\/comments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/golgappa.site\/comments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/golgappa.site\/comments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golgappa.site\/comments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golgappa.site\/comments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/golgappa.site\/comments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10,"href":"https:\/\/golgappa.site\/comments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions\/10"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/golgappa.site\/comments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golgappa.site\/comments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golgappa.site\/comments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}