Session 1: Production RAG Patterns - Test Solutions¶
📝 Multiple Choice Test¶
Question 1: Circuit Breaker Pattern¶
What is the primary purpose of a circuit breaker pattern in production RAG systems?
A) To improve query performance
B) To prevent cascading failures when document processing fails ✅
C) To reduce memory usage
D) To enable caching
Explanation: The circuit breaker pattern is a critical resilience mechanism that temporarily stops requests to a failing service, preventing the failure from cascading throughout the system. When document processing fails repeatedly, the circuit breaker opens to give the system time to recover, rather than continuing to overwhelm it with requests.
Question 2: Exponential Backoff Strategy¶
Why is exponential backoff with jitter important for retry logic?
A) It reduces computational costs
B) It prevents thundering herd problems and distributes retry attempts ✅
C) It improves accuracy
D) It simplifies error handling
Explanation: Exponential backoff increases delay between retry attempts exponentially, while jitter adds randomness to prevent all clients from retrying simultaneously. This combination prevents the "thundering herd" problem where multiple clients overwhelm a recovering service with synchronized retry attempts.
Question 3: Production Monitoring¶
What metrics are most critical for monitoring production RAG systems?
A) Only response time
B) Response time, error rate, cache hit rate, and accuracy ✅
C) Only error count
D) Only cache performance
Explanation: Production RAG systems require comprehensive monitoring across multiple dimensions. Response time indicates performance, error rate shows reliability, cache hit rate measures efficiency, and accuracy ensures the system meets quality requirements. Monitoring only one metric provides an incomplete picture of system health.
Question 4: Configuration Management¶
How should production RAG systems handle configuration management?
A) Hard-code all values
B) Use only environment variables
C) Combine file-based config with environment variable overrides ✅
D) Use only configuration files
Explanation: The 12-factor app methodology recommends using configuration files for defaults and environment variables for deployment-specific overrides. This approach provides flexibility for different environments (development, staging, production) while maintaining security and deployability.
Question 5: Structured Logging¶
What is the benefit of structured logging in production RAG systems?
A) Reduces log file size
B) Enables better debugging and monitoring with searchable, parseable logs ✅
C) Improves query performance
D) Reduces memory usage
Explanation: Structured logging formats log entries as searchable, parseable data (typically JSON), enabling automated analysis, alerting, and debugging. This is essential for production systems where manual log analysis becomes impractical at scale.