System Design & Architecture

System Design Overview — Complete Guide for Beginners

Learn what system design is, why it matters for interviews and real-world engineering, and how to architect scalable, reliable distributed systems.

Load Balancing — Algorithms, Configurations, and Best Practices Explained

Learn how load balancers distribute traffic across servers using round robin, least connections, and IP hash. NGINX config examples, health checks, and real-world usage.

Caching Strategies — Write-Through, Write-Around, Write-Back Explained with Examples

Learn caching strategies for CDN, application, and database layers. Redis and Memcached examples, cache invalidation patterns, TTL, and real-world tradeoffs.

Content Delivery Network — How CDNs Work, Benefits, and Configuration Explained

Learn how CDNs use edge servers to deliver content faster, reduce latency by 60%, and absorb DDoS attacks. CloudFront, Cloudflare, origin pull vs push explained.

Message Queues — Pub/Sub Architecture with RabbitMQ, Kafka, and SQS Explained

Learn how message queues decouple services using producer-consumer patterns. RabbitMQ, Kafka, SQS examples, use cases for async processing, buffering, and decoupling.

Rate Limiting — Token Bucket, Leaky Bucket, and Sliding Window Algorithms Explained

Learn rate limiting algorithms used by APIs: token bucket, leaky bucket, sliding window log. Python implementations with API gateway configuration examples.

Microservices Design Patterns — Service Discovery, Circuit Breaker, Saga, CQRS Explained

Learn essential microservices patterns: API gateway, service discovery, circuit breaker, saga orchestration, CQRS, and event sourcing with real-world examples.

API Design Principles — RESTful Resource Naming, Versioning, Pagination, and Error Handling

Learn RESTful API design principles: resource naming conventions, versioning strategies, pagination, error response formats, and idempotency with real examples.

Distributed Systems — CAP Theorem, Consistency Models, Consensus Algorithms Explained

Learn distributed systems fundamentals: CAP theorem, strong vs eventual consistency, Paxos and Raft consensus, and challenges like network partitions and clock skew.

Consistency Models — Strong, Eventual, Causal Consistency and CRDTs Explained

Learn distributed consistency models: strong, eventual, causal, and read-your-writes consistency. CRDTs, tradeoffs, and when to use each model in real systems.

Database Sharding — Horizontal Partitioning Strategies with Examples

Learn database sharding techniques: hash-based, range-based, and directory-based sharding. How Instagram shards billions of photos and handles rebalancing.

CDN Deep Dive — Edge Servers, Cache Invalidation, and Geo-Routing Explained

Master content delivery networks: edge server architecture, origin pull vs push, cache invalidation strategies, geo-routing, DDoS protection, and CDN provider comparison.

Message Queues Deep Dive — RabbitMQ vs Kafka vs SQS with Routing and Delivery Guarantees

Master message queue architecture: RabbitMQ exchanges, Kafka partitions, SQS FIFO, at-least-once vs exactly-once delivery, routing strategies, consumer groups, and dead letter queues.

Distributed Caching — Redis Cluster, Memcached, and Multi-Tier Cache Strategies

Master distributed caching: Redis Cluster vs Memcached, cache-aside/read-through/write-through patterns, eviction policies (LRU, LFU, TTL), cache stampede prevention, and multi-tier caching.

Microservices Communication — REST, gRPC, Events, and Service Mesh Patterns

Master inter-service communication: synchronous (REST, gRPC) vs asynchronous (events, messaging), service mesh (Istio, Linkerd), API gateway patterns, circuit breaker, and retry with exponential backoff.

Event-Driven Architecture — Event Sourcing, CQRS, and Pub/Sub with Kafka Examples

Learn event-driven architecture: event sourcing, CQRS, pub/sub with Kafka. Build an order processing pipeline with audit trails, temporal queries, and decoupled services.

Distributed Consensus: Paxos, Raft & Leader Election Explained

Learn distributed consensus algorithms: Paxos (basic, multi-Paxos, Fast Paxos), Raft (leader election, log replication, safety), Zab, gossip protocol, quorum, and fault tolerance.

Observability: Metrics, Tracing & Logging at Scale

Learn observability: RED and USE methods for metrics, distributed tracing with OpenTelemetry/Jaeger/Zipkin, structured logging with ELK/Loki, Prometheus alerting, SLOs/SLIs/SLAs, and Grafana dashboards.