Delve into high level design concepts, focusing on system architecture, component interactions, and design patterns. Learn to create scalable and efficient solutions!
How to split a database across machines — the trade-offs, the strategies, and the failure modes that trip up real systems at scale. What sharding is A single database node has hard physical ceilings: disk capacity, RAM, CPU cycles, and write throughput are all finite. For most applications, this is fine for years. But at … Read full article: Sharding
Every system hits a wall eventually. Requests pile up, latency climbs, and the database starts sweating. At that moment, every engineer faces the same fork in the road: do we make the machine bigger, or do we add more machines? That choice — vertical scaling versus horizontal scaling — is one of the most consequential … Read full article: Vertical vs Horizontal Scaling: A Complete Guide for System Designers
Imagine you and your friend both open the same Google Doc at the same time. You type something. Does your friend see it instantly? After a delay? Ever? That question — when does everyone see the same thing? — is what consistency is all about. And it turns out, there’s no single right answer. Different … Read full article: A Simple Guide to Consistency
The dual write problem is one of the most fundamental and tricky challenges in distributed systems engineering. It arises whenever a system needs to write data to two or more independent data stores (or systems) atomically, and the inherent impossibility of doing so reliably without careful design. Introduction As applications evolve from monolithic architectures to … Read full article: The Dual Write Problem: A Comprehensive Guide
Redis (Remote Dictionary Server) is an open-source, in-memory data structure store used as a database, cache, message broker, and streaming engine. What is Redis? Redis (Remote Dictionary Server) is an open-source, in-memory data store used as a database, cache, message broker, and queue. It stores everything in RAM, which is why operations are blazing fast … Read full article: Redis Complete Production Guide
At a small scale, a counter is nothing. Increment a number, store it, done. But the moment your product goes viral — a tweet blowing up, a video trending, a flash sale going live — that innocent little number becomes a thundering bottleneck that can bring your entire system down. Sharded counters are the standard … Read full article: Why a Simple Counter Breaks at Scale
Apache Kafka has become the backbone of modern real-time data pipelines and event-driven architectures. Originally developed at LinkedIn and later open-sourced, Kafka is now one of the most widely adopted distributed streaming platforms. It is designed to handle high-throughput, fault-tolerant, and scalable event streaming across diverse industries. What is Kafka? At its core, Kafka is … Read full article: Apache Kafka: A Complete Guide
System design involves creating the architecture of a system to meet specific requirements. Here are some common terms used in system design: Network Partition In the context of distributed databases or systems, network partitions are particularly challenging because they force the system to make trade-offs between consistency, availability, and partition tolerance, as described by the … Read full article: Common Terms of System Design
Consistent hashing is a technique used in distributed systems to evenly distribute data across a cluster of nodes, minimising the amount of data that needs to be relocated when nodes are added or removed. This method ensures that the system remains scalable, fault-tolerant, and efficient. Introduction In a large-scale distributed system, data does not fit … Read full article: Consistent Hashing: An In-Depth Guide
Back of the envelope calculations are invaluable in the early stages of system design. These rough, rapid estimates provide ballpark figures that help engineers and architects quickly assess feasibility and compare multiple approaches, guiding more detailed analysis and design. What Are Back of the Envelope Calculations? Back of the envelope calculations are quick, simplified estimates … Read full article: Back of the Envelope Calculations for System Design: A Practical Guide