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Digital · Guided lesson

Map workload and data flow before choosing services

About 12 minutes · 4 reading + 8 practice and checks
Time includes reading, practice, and questions. Extra videos or further study are optional.
See this course’s project requirements

A fictional cloud-service architecture packet with workload and data flow, responsibility boundary, least-privilege role matrix, unit-based cost and egress budget, recovery table and supported service decision.

Keep your working files in your own notebook or software. Save a private description, checklist, and work link in My Proof.

What to include

  • Create a unit-labeled workload, minimal-data flow, and explicit planning-assumption register.
  • Produce a service-specific provider/customer matrix and a list of real-contract questions.
  • Create task-based allowed/denied role cases and clearly mark the access matrix as design evidence.
  • Deliver independently checked baseline and stress costs, reserve totals, and a budget-review condition.
  • Create a recovery timeline and validation checklist with distinct RPO/RTO targets and unexecuted limits.
  • Deliver a supported architecture decision with calculation evidence and unresolved real-service questions.

Review and revise

Use these criteria to check your work and choose what to improve.

  • The implementation or declared simulation follows the supplied contract and retains inspectable original inputs.
  • Normal, boundary and rejected cases are recorded with expected versus observed results.
  • The changed case has a correct explanation and does not rely on hidden state.
  • The project includes source, outputs, instructions and honest tool, privacy and verification limits.
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Before you begin

The idea in everyday life

Fictional reference-card service: 1000 requests/month, 20 budgeted compute hours, 2 GB stored, 4 GB outbound. Invented rates: $0.05/hour, $0.20/GB-month storage, $0.10/GB outbound, $2/month fixed; 25% reserve and $6/month budget. These are exercise assumptions, not provider prices or measured workload forecasts.

The idea

Architecture begins with workload, data, and boundaries. A request estimate does not automatically determine compute hours; assumptions must be stated and tested later.

Follow along

Map workload and data flow before choosing services — original worked practice

Architecture begins with workload, data, and boundaries. A request estimate does not automatically determine compute hours; assumptions must be stated and tested later.

Fictional reference-card service: 1000 requests/month, 20 budgeted compute hours, 2 GB stored, 4 GB outbound. Invented rates: $0.05/hour, $0.20/GB-month storage, $0.10/GB outbound, $2/month fixed; 25% reserve and $6/month budget. These are exercise assumptions, not provider prices or measured workload forecasts.

  1. 1. Step 1

    Read cloud-case.json and copy all workload quantities with units.

    You should see: Requests, hours, stored GB, and outbound GB are distinct.

    Architecture begins with workload, data, and boundaries. A request estimate does not automatically determine compute hours; assumptions must be stated and tested later.

  2. 2. Step 2

    Draw browser → managed API → content database, with database → backup and operator → control plane.

    You should see: Request, data, backup, and administration flows are separate.

    Architecture begins with workload, data, and boundaries. A request estimate does not automatically determine compute hours; assumptions must be stated and tested later.

  3. 3. Step 3

    Mark the data as fictional public reference cards and exclude real learner identity or private records.

    You should see: The practice has a declared minimal data scope.

    Architecture begins with workload, data, and boundaries. A request estimate does not automatically determine compute hours; assumptions must be stated and tested later.

  4. 4. Step 4

    Record 20 compute hours as a supplied planning assumption rather than deriving it from 1000 requests.

    You should see: A workload/data-flow map and assumption register.

    Architecture begins with workload, data, and boundaries. A request estimate does not automatically determine compute hours; assumptions must be stated and tested later.

Now change one thing

Monthly requests double, but no compute measurement is available. May compute hours be assumed exactly doubled as an observed fact?

Your work

What to finish

Create a unit-labeled workload, minimal-data flow, and explicit planning-assumption register.

Common mistake

Watch for this

Treating a scenario assumption as measured capacity or mapping private data into an unnecessary practice service.

How can I tell I understand it?

Demonstrate the rule: Architecture begins with workload, data, and boundaries. A request estimate does not automatically determine compute hours; assumptions must be stated and tested later. Use the supplied variant to distinguish a changed result from a broken implementation.

Try 3 questions

Quick knowledge check

Answer all 3 questions. Get at least 2 right and the lesson completes automatically.

Not yet passed

You’ll get an explanation for each answer. Signed in? Your results save to your account.

1Why keep requests and compute hours as separate planning quantities?
2Which arrow describes a backup flow rather than a user request?
3What belongs in the assumption register?
0 of 3 answeredApply the lesson to a short question, then review the explanation.
1
Finish this lesson

Pass the check. We’ll save the progress.

Answer all 3 questions above and get at least 2 right. You can review the explanations and try again.

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Tools, templates, and lesson sources

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Sources and further reading

Explore the references behind this lesson.

aws.amazon.com — shared responsibility model
Source & access notes · checked 2026-10-01

Relevant documented module/API behavior inspected during expansion authoring; actual execution evidence is recorded separately. No grant eligibility is established.

Access: Official page retrieved with the web reader on 2026-10-01. Documentation reading does not certify execution in every native tool or browser.

Reuse: Original local practice files, fictional data, worked examples and questions. Concepts paraphrased and linked; source exercises are not copied.

docs.cloud.google.com — cost optimization
Source & access notes · checked 2026-10-01

Relevant documented module/API behavior inspected during expansion authoring; actual execution evidence is recorded separately. No grant eligibility is established.

Access: Official page retrieved with the web reader on 2026-10-01. Documentation reading does not certify execution in every native tool or browser.

Reuse: Original local practice files, fictional data, worked examples and questions. Concepts paraphrased and linked; source exercises are not copied.

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