Technology Evaluation Template
Purpose
The Technology Evaluation document systematically assesses candidate technologies against defined criteria to support technology selection decisions.
When to Use
- Evaluating new technologies for adoption
- Selecting between competing solutions
- Replacing end-of-life technologies
- Selecting vendors for new capabilities
- Technology strategy planning
- Building technology radar assessments
Evaluation Overview
Technology Category: [Category - Database, Cache, etc.]
Candidates Evaluated: [List all options considered]
Evaluation Date: [Date]
Evaluators: [Team members involved]
Decision: [Technology selected or deferred]
Section 1: Business Requirements
Define the business needs driving the evaluation:
Problem Statement:
- What business problem are we solving?
- Why is it important?
- What's the impact of not solving it?
Evaluation Drivers:
1. Driver 1: [Business or technical reason]
Priority: [Critical/High/Medium/Low]
2. Driver 2: [Business or technical reason]
Priority: [Critical/High/Medium/Low]
Example:
Problem Statement:
- Current MySQL database at capacity (max storage reached)
- Query performance degrading (avg latency 500ms → 1s)
- No sharding/scaling capability in current architecture
- Need to support 10x data growth over next 2 years
Evaluation Drivers:
1. Horizontal scalability (Critical)
- Must scale from 1TB to 10TB data
- Support distributed queries
- Data locality optimization
2. Query performance (Critical)
- Reduce query latency from 1s to <200ms
- Support 10,000 QPS
- Real-time analytics capabilities
3. Operational simplicity (High)
- Reduce operational overhead
- Support for auto-sharding/rebalancing
- Managed service preferred
4. Cost efficiency (Medium)
- Current DB: $50k/year
- Budget: <$100k/year for 10TB capacity
Section 2: Candidate Technologies
List all technologies being evaluated:
Candidates:
1. Technology A: [Name & Version]
- Status: [Mature/Stable/Growing/Declining]
- Category: [Type of solution]
- Use case: [What it's designed for]
2. Technology B: [Name & Version]
- Status: [Mature/Stable/Growing/Declining]
- Category: [Type of solution]
- Use case: [What it's designed for]
3. Technology C: [Name & Version]
- Status: [Mature/Stable/Growing/Declining]
- Category: [Type of solution]
- Use case: [What it's designed for]
Example:
Candidates:
1. PostgreSQL 15 (Sharded)
- Status: Mature
- Category: Relational Database
- Use case: OLTP with sharding layer (Citus)
2. MongoDB 7.0
- Status: Stable
- Category: NoSQL Document Database
- Use case: Flexible schema, horizontal scaling
3. CockroachDB v23
- Status: Stable
- Category: Distributed SQL
- Use case: ACID compliance at scale, distributed
4. ScyllaDB v5.2
- Status: Stable (but newer)
- Category: NoSQL Wide-column
- Use case: High throughput, time-series
5. AWS Aurora (MySQL compatible)
- Status: Mature managed service
- Category: Managed Relational Database
- Use case: AWS-optimized relational database
Section 3: Evaluation Criteria Matrix
Define how technologies will be evaluated:
Evaluation Criteria:
┌─────────────────────────────┬──────────┬────────┐
│ Criterion │ Weight │ Score │
│ │ (%) │ (1-10) │
├─────────────────────────────┼──────────┼────────┤
│ TECHNICAL FACTORS │ │ │
├─────────────────────────────┼──────────┼────────┤
│ Scalability (horizontal) │ 20% │ __ │
│ Query performance │ 20% │ __ │
│ Data consistency model │ 15% │ __ │
│ Operational complexity │ 10% │ __ │
│ Team expertise required │ 10% │ __ │
├─────────────────────────────┼──────────┼────────┤
│ BUSINESS FACTORS │ │ │
├─────────────────────────────┼──────────┼────────┤
│ Total cost of ownership │ 15% │ __ │
│ Vendor stability │ 10% │ __ │
│ Community/support │ 5% │ __ │
│ Migration effort │ 5% │ __ │
├─────────────────────────────┼──────────┼────────┤
│ STRATEGIC FACTORS │ │ │
├─────────────────────────────┼──────────┼────────┤
│ Alignment with architecture │ 10% │ __ │
│ Lock-in risk │ 5% │ __ │
│ Future roadmap alignment │ 5% │ __ │
└─────────────────────────────┴──────────┴────────┘
Scoring Guidelines:
- 9-10: Exceeds requirements, best in class
- 7-8: Meets or exceeds requirements
- 5-6: Meets most requirements with some gaps
- 3-4: Meets basic requirements, significant gaps
- 1-2: Does not meet requirements
Section 4: Detailed Evaluation
For each candidate, score against all criteria:
CANDIDATE 1: [Technology Name]
Scalability (Horizontal) - Weight 20%: Score 8/10
- Supports distributed architecture
- Automatic sharding capability
- Proven at 100+ node clusters
- Rebalancing is automatic
- Weaknesses: Initial setup complexity
Query Performance - Weight 20%: Score 7/10
- P50 latency: 50ms (meets <200ms target) ✓
- P99 latency: 150ms (meets target) ✓
- Throughput: 8,000 QPS (below 10,000 target) ✗
- Index performance: Excellent
- Weakness: Lower throughput than some competitors
Data Consistency - Weight 15%: Score 9/10
- Full ACID compliance ✓
- Serializable isolation ✓
- Distributed transactions supported ✓
- Consistent snapshots ✓
Operational Complexity - Weight 10%: Score 6/10
- Requires operational expertise
- Complex configuration options
- Active maintenance (backups, monitoring)
- Good documentation available
- Weakness: Not fully managed service
Team Expertise - Weight 10%: Score 8/10
- Team familiar with relational databases
- Sharding concepts need training (1-2 weeks)
- Good learning resources available
- Community support strong
Cost of Ownership - Weight 15%: Score 7/10
- Hardware: $40k (1TB, 5-node cluster)
- Software: Open source (free)
- Operations: 2 FTE ($250k/year)
- Total Year 1: $290k (budget: $100k) ✗
- Note: Cost exceeds budget significantly
Vendor Stability - Weight 10%: Score 9/10
- Long-standing open source project
- Strong community governance
- Active development
- Enterprises using in production
Community & Support - Weight 5%: Score 8/10
- Active community (Stack Overflow, forums)
- Commercial support available ($50k/year optional)
- Documentation comprehensive
- Training resources available
Migration Effort - Weight 5%: Score 6/10
- Schema redesign required
- Data migration complex (1-2 months)
- Downtime required for cutover
- Rollback path available
Alignment with Architecture - Weight 10%: Score 7/10
- Fits with distributed architecture strategy
- Compatible with current stack
- No vendor lock-in
Lock-in Risk - Weight 5%: Score 9/10
- Open source (low lock-in)
- Portable to other systems
- No proprietary features
Future Roadmap - Weight 5%: Score 8/10
- Active development continues
- Features align with 5-year strategy
- Roadmap available and public
TOTAL SCORE: (8×0.20) + (7×0.20) + (9×0.15) + (6×0.10) +
(8×0.10) + (7×0.15) + (9×0.10) + (8×0.05) +
(6×0.05) + (7×0.10) + (9×0.05) + (8×0.05)
= 7.7/10 (STRONG OPTION)
Summary:
✓ Excellent scalability, consistency, and community
✓ Meets performance targets in most scenarios
✗ Cost significantly exceeds budget
✗ Operational complexity requires expertise
→ Recommendation: Viable but cost is concerning
Repeat for each candidate…
Section 5: Comparison Matrix
Create side-by-side comparison of key metrics:
Comparison Table:
┌─────────────────────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐
│ Criterion (weight) │ Candidate A│ Candidate B│ Candidate C│
├─────────────────────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┤
│ Horizontal Scalability (20%)│ 8/10 │ 9/10 │ 7/10 │
│ Query Performance (20%) │ 7/10 │ 6/10 │ 9/10 │
│ Data Consistency (15%) │ 9/10 │ 7/10 │ 8/10 │
│ Operational Complexity (10%) │ 6/10 │ 8/10 │ 7/10 │
│ Team Expertise (10%) │ 8/10 │ 5/10 │ 6/10 │
│ Cost of Ownership (15%) │ 7/10 │ 8/10 │ 6/10 │
│ Vendor Stability (10%) │ 9/10 │ 6/10 │ 8/10 │
│ Community/Support (5%) │ 8/10 │ 7/10 │ 6/10 │
│ Migration Effort (5%) │ 6/10 │ 8/10 │ 5/10 │
│ Architecture Alignment (10%) │ 7/10 │ 8/10 │ 7/10 │
│ Lock-in Risk (5%) │ 9/10 │ 4/10 │ 9/10 │
│ Future Roadmap (5%) │ 8/10 │ 6/10 │ 8/10 │
├─────────────────────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┤
│ TOTAL SCORE │ 7.7/10 │ 6.9/10 │ 7.4/10 │
├─────────────────────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┤
│ Total Cost Year 1 │ $290k │ $180k │ $220k │
│ Implementation Timeline │ 4 months │ 3 months │ 5 months │
│ Risk Level │ Medium │ Low │ Medium │
└─────────────────────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘
Section 6: Risk Assessment
Identify risks for each candidate:
Candidate A Risks:
┌──────────────────────────┬──────────┬────────┐
│ Risk │Likelihood│ Impact │
├──────────────────────────┼──────────┼────────┤
│ Cost overruns │ High │ High │
│ Mitigation: Budget review│ → Go/no-go decision needed
├──────────────────────────┼──────────┼────────┤
│ Team skills gap │ Medium │ Medium │
│ Mitigation: Training (1-2 wks)
├──────────────────────────┼──────────┼────────┤
│ Migration complexity │ Medium │ High │
│ Mitigation: Phased migration, parallel run
└──────────────────────────┴──────────┴────────┘
Candidate B Risks:
┌──────────────────────────┬──────────┬────────┐
│ Risk │Likelihood│ Impact │
├──────────────────────────┼──────────┼────────┤
│ Vendor lock-in (AWS) │ High │ Medium │
│ Mitigation: Accept trade-off for simplicity
├──────────────────────────┼──────────┼────────┤
│ Query performance gaps │ Medium │ Medium │
│ Mitigation: Load test, confirm via POC
└──────────────────────────┴──────────┴────────┘
Candidate C Risks:
┌──────────────────────────┬──────────┬────────┐
│ Risk │Likelihood│ Impact │
├──────────────────────────┼──────────┼────────┤
│ Newer product (adoption) │ Medium │ Medium │
│ Mitigation: POC, vendor engagement
├──────────────────────────┼──────────┼────────┤
│ Smaller community │ Medium │ Low │
│ Mitigation: Vendor support contract
└──────────────────────────┴──────────┴────────┘
Section 7: POC Recommendation
Recommend if POC is needed before final decision:
POC Recommendations:
Candidate A: POC RECOMMENDED
- Reason: Cost overruns concerning, need to validate performance
- Scope: 2-week POC to benchmark performance, verify sharding
- Success criteria: Confirm P99 latency <200ms, throughput >8k QPS
- Timeline: 3 weeks if proceeding
Candidate B: POC NOT NEEDED
- Reason: Mature AWS managed service, low risk
- Alternative: Pilot in pre-prod environment instead
- Cost: $1k for 2-week trial
Candidate C: POC RECOMMENDED
- Reason: Newer product, need production-readiness validation
- Scope: 3-week POC including operational testing
- Success criteria: Confirm production readiness, ops procedures
Section 8: Final Recommendation
Recommended Technology: [Technology Name]
Rationale:
1. [Top reason for selection]
2. [Second reason]
3. [Third reason]
Example:
Recommended Technology: Candidate B (AWS Aurora PostgreSQL)
Rationale:
1. Best balance of performance, cost, and operational simplicity
- Meets scalability requirements without custom sharding
- Fully managed service (no operational overhead)
- Total cost $180k vs $290k for alternative
2. Lowest risk of all candidates
- Mature, proven technology
- Excellent AWS ecosystem integration
- Strong community and vendor support
3. Fastest time to implementation
- 3-month implementation vs 4-5 months for alternatives
- Team familiar with PostgreSQL
- Minimal migration complexity
Alternative Recommendations (if primary deferred):
- Secondary: Candidate A (if budget allows and cost overruns resolved)
- Tertiary: Candidate C (if performance requirements change)
Non-Recommendations (Why not):
- Candidate C: Newer product carries more risk, requires POC
- Candidate D: Does not meet scalability requirements
- Candidate E: Cost exceeds budget significantly
Implementation Timeline:
- Month 1: Architecture design, schema redesign, data migration planning
- Month 2: Data migration, staging validation
- Month 3: Production deployment, monitoring validation, cutover
- Month 4: Optimization and performance tuning
Estimated Cost:
- AWS Aurora infrastructure: $50k Year 1, $40k ongoing
- Migration services: $80k (internal + external consulting)
- Team training: $10k
- Tools/monitoring: $5k
- Total: $145k (within budget!)
Success Metrics:
- Query latency P95: < 200ms ✓
- Throughput: > 10,000 QPS ✓
- Availability: > 99.9% ✓
- Cost: < $100k/year ✓
Section 9: Decision Sign-Off
Decision Made: ☐ Yes ☐ No ☐ Deferred
If deferred:
- Reason for deferral: [Why not deciding now]
- When will this be revisited: [Timeline]
- What additional information is needed: [Specific items]
Approval Authority: ___________
Date: ___________
Finance Approval: ___________
Architecture Approval: ___________
Related Resources
Status: Complete
Last Updated: November 2025
Version: 1.0
Contributors: Architecture Practice Team