Evolutionary Architecture

My study notes on building systems that change safely, with a focus on cloud platforms and the enterprise architect role.

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The idea in one line

An evolutionary architecture supports guided, incremental change across multiple dimensions. You don’t predict the future. You make change cheap and safe, and you use automated checks to keep the important qualities intact while things change.

Core concepts

Architectural characteristics, fitness functions, incremental change, coupling and architecture quanta, architecture styles, evolving data, and pitfalls.

Cloud platforms

Fitness functions for the cloud (policy as code, cost, resilience), evolving a platform (landing zones, golden paths, migrations), and Team Topologies (platform teams, cognitive load).

Decision log

Worked ADRs for an AWS platform: account structure, network topology, event backbone, and IaC and golden paths.

The EA role

Governance as code, ADRs, and the advice process, plus questions to ask the team lead.

Resources

Books, articles, and tools, a study plan, plus flash cards and a scenario quiz.