C2: Architecture Assessment

Challenge Info

⏱️ 30 min · 🏆 25 pts · 🤖 03-Architect, 04-Design · 📄 02-architecture-assessment.md, 03-des-architecture-diagram.md

Objective

• Do now: Turn the requirements into an Azure architecture you can justify.
• Input: agent-output/freshconnect/01-requirements.md.
• Output: agent-output/freshconnect/02-architecture-assessment.md and agent-output/freshconnect/03-des-architecture-diagram.md.
• Required to move on: Service choices, WAF trade-offs, cost view, and a diagram.
• Decisions now: Compute platform, data platform, network/security boundary, cost vs reliability trade-offs.
• Next: C3 turns this assessment and diagram into IaC and deployment work.

Your goal is not to collect every possible Azure option. Your goal is to choose a workable MVP architecture that fits the FreshConnect constraints and can survive later implementation and stakeholder scrutiny.

The Business Challenge

FreshConnect now has clear requirements, but Nordic Fresh Foods still needs a design that fits a small ops team, stays in EU regions, targets roughly 99.9% availability, and remains defensible inside a budget of about €500 per month. Every service choice must balance capability, cost, and operational complexity.

Your Tasks

1. Read the C1 requirements and list the decisions that still need architecture-level judgment instead of more discovery.
2. Use the 03-Architect agent to assess the workload against the Azure Well-Architected Framework and recommend Azure services, SKUs, and risks.
3. Choose the service set and cost posture you are prepared to defend to both a small engineering team and a budget-conscious stakeholder.
4. Use the 04-Design agent to create an architecture diagram that matches the written assessment.
5. Save both artifacts at the required paths.

Key Decisions

• Which hosting model gives enough reliability and scale without creating an operations burden the team cannot sustain?
• Which data service best matches FreshConnect’s order and partner data while staying within budget and compliance boundaries?
• Which security controls must be first-class from day one, and which can be deferred without creating unacceptable risk?
• Where should you spend money for real business value, and where is the architecture starting to drift into over-engineering?

Deliverables

• agent-output/freshconnect/02-architecture-assessment.md
• agent-output/freshconnect/03-des-architecture-diagram.md
• Assessment includes recommended Azure services, key SKUs, WAF reasoning, risks, and cost assumptions.
• Diagram shows services, relationships, data flows, security boundaries, and region placement.

Success Criteria

Focus	What good looks like	Evidence
Service selection	The chosen Azure services fit the requirements and team capability	Each major service has a short justification tied to a requirement or trade-off
WAF thinking	Reliability, security, cost, performance, and operations are visible in the reasoning	The assessment explains the main trade-offs instead of listing features
Cost fit	The architecture is realistic for the MVP budget	Cost drivers, assumptions, or guardrails are called out explicitly
Architecture communication	Someone else can understand the design quickly	Diagram and written assessment tell the same story

Tips / Hints

Compact prompt pattern and shared references

Use a prompt structure like this:

Review agent-output/freshconnect/01-requirements.md and recommend an Azure MVP
architecture for FreshConnect.

Decisions I need to make now:
- compute platform
- database choice
- security and network baseline
- cost trade-offs within ~€500/month

Return: WAF-aligned recommendations, key risks, and a diagram-ready summary.

Use Hints & Tips for deeper service selection prompts, Hints & Tips for cost thinking, and Quick Reference Card for the shared security baseline.

Watch Out

• Do not accept an architecture you cannot explain in business terms.
• Do not let the diagram drift away from the written assessment.
• Do not ignore cost assumptions until the end; they shape the service choices.
• Do not forget EU residency or governance requirements when comparing services.

Artifact Handoff

Item	Value
Input from	agent-output/freshconnect/01-requirements.md (Challenge 1)
Your output	agent-output/freshconnect/02-architecture-assessment.md, agent-output/freshconnect/03-des-architecture-diagram.md
Next challenge uses	C3 uses the assessment and diagram to choose IaC structure, validation steps, and deployment targets

Next Step

Challenge 3 turns this design into code. If your assessment is missing a service boundary, security control, or cost assumption now, implementation will either stall or invent its own answer later.