System Design: Zero to Hero
From single-server apps to planet-scale distributed systems
38
Chapters
10
Parts
8
Quizzes
Part I — Foundations: Thinking in Systems
- 01What is System Design and Why It Matters
- 02Gathering Requirements: Functional vs Non-Functional
- 03Back-of-Envelope Estimation: Numbers Every Engineer Should Know
- 04Single Server Architecture: Where Everything Starts
Part II — Networking & Communication
- 05DNS, IP, TCP/UDP — The Network Foundation
- 06HTTP, REST APIs, and API Gateway Patterns
- 07Sync vs Async: RPC, Messaging, Event-Driven
- 08WebSockets, SSE, and Real-Time Communication
Part III — Scaling Fundamentals
- 09Vertical vs Horizontal Scaling
- 10Load Balancing: Algorithms, L4 vs L7, Health Checks
- 11Caching: Strategies, Invalidation, CDNs
- 12Database Scaling: Replication, Sharding, Read Replicas
Part IV — Data Storage Patterns
- 13SQL vs NoSQL: Choosing the Right Store
- 14Blob Storage, Object Stores, and File Systems
- 15Message Queues: Kafka, RabbitMQ, Patterns
- 16Data Partitioning and Consistent Hashing
Part V — Reliability & Resilience
- 17Availability: Nines, SLAs, and Redundancy
- 18Fault Tolerance: Failover, Circuit Breakers, Retries
- 19CAP Theorem and Consistency Models in Practice
- 20Rate Limiting and Backpressure
Part VI — Distributed Systems Concepts
- 21Distributed ID Generation (Snowflake, UUID, ULID)
- 22Consensus and Leader Election (Raft, ZooKeeper)
- 23Distributed Transactions: Saga, 2PC, Outbox
- 24Event Sourcing and CQRS
Part VII — Infrastructure Components
- 25Reverse Proxy, CDN, and Edge Computing
- 26Search Systems (Elasticsearch, Inverted Index)
- 27Monitoring, Logging, and Observability
- 28Service Discovery and Configuration Management
Part VIII — Security & Auth
Part IX — Real-World Design Exercises
- 31Design: URL Shortener
- 32Design: Chat System (WhatsApp-like)
- 33Design: Notification System
- 34Design: Distributed Rate Limiter
- 35Design: News Feed (Twitter/Facebook)
- 36Design: Object Storage (S3-like)
Part X — Putting It All Together
- 37System Design in Telecom: Cloud-Native NF Architecture
- 38The System Design Framework: How to Approach Any Problem
Start with Chapter 1: What is System Design?