System Design

These system design guides cover how to build software that scales and stays up. There are over a hundred posts, grouped by topic.

For a start, read load balancing and caching. Then high availability covers uptime. Also, each sub section goes deeper into one area.

112 articles

15/03/2024 10 min read

HTTP/2 vs HTTP/3: Multiplexing, QUIC, and Real-World Performance

HTTP/2 vs HTTP/3 compares streams, head-of-line blocking, and QUIC so you can pick a protocol that stays fast when packets drop on real networks today.
30/09/2023 4 min read

Microservice System Design

Executive Summary: Splitting a monolith into services without design discipline trades one problem for distributed complexity. I cover…
15/08/2023 10 min read

Semantic Versioning in Practice: Breaking Changes, Deprecation, and Trust

Semantic Versioning in Practice shows how you mark breaking changes, deprecate old APIs, and keep the trust of…
15/07/2023 10 min read

Schema Versioning Strategies: Backward Compatibility, Expand-Contract, and API Evolution

Schema Versioning Strategies keep old and new code alive too. Learn expand-contract steps, safe fields, and how to…
02/07/2023 10 min read

Chaos Engineering: Principles, Experiments, and Production Safety

Chaos Engineering tests failure before users ever do. Learn principles, experiment design, and safety stops that keep production…
04/06/2023 10 min read

Autoscaling Backend Systems: Metrics, Policies, and Avoiding Thrash

Autoscaling Backend Systems need stable metrics and cooldown rules. Learn how policies avoid thrash, protect latency, and control…
01/06/2023 10 min read

API Versioning Strategies: URI, Header, and GraphQL Approaches Compared

API Versioning Strategies compare URI paths, headers, and GraphQL schemas so you can ship changes without breaking clients…
07/05/2023 10 min read

Multi-Region Deployments: Data Replication, Latency, and Failover Trade-offs

Multi-Region Deployments cut user latency and widen the blast radius. Learn replication, failover trade-offs, and when a second…
15/04/2023 10 min read

Feature Flags Architecture: Progressive Delivery, Kill Switches, and Technical Debt

Feature Flags Architecture lets you ship code dark and turn it on safely. Learn kill switches, progressive delivery,…
09/04/2023 10 min read

Backup Strategies for Backend Systems: RPO, RTO, and Restore Testing

Backup Strategies for Backend Systems protect data you cannot recreate. Learn how to set RPO and RTO, then…
12/03/2023 10 min read

Failover Architecture: Active-Passive, Active-Active, and DNS-Based Failover

Failover Architecture moves traffic when a site dies. Learn active-passive, active-active, and DNS failover, plus the checks that…
01/03/2023 10 min read

Webhooks Architecture: Security, Retries, Idempotency, and Observability

Webhooks Architecture covers signed callbacks, retries, and idempotent handlers. Learn how to observe failures and keep both producers…
20/02/2023 10 min read

Cost Optimization for Backend Systems: Architecture, Autoscaling, and Observability

Cost Optimization for Backend Systems cuts waste without hiding risk. Learn how architecture, autoscaling, and metrics keep spend…
12/02/2023 10 min read

Rolling Deployments: Zero-Downtime Releases, Health Checks, and Rollback Planning

Rolling Deployments replace instances in small batches so users stay online. Learn health gates, batch size, and how…