How a CDN Works: Edge Caching, TTLs, and Cache Hit Ratio
How a CDN serves content from edge servers near users; cache hits, origin fetches, TTLs, cache hit ratio,…
Category
System Design
Explore system design principles and strategies to build scalable, reliable, and high-performing software architectures for complex systems.
112 articles
Reverse Proxy Explained: The Server in Front of Your Servers
What a reverse proxy is, what it does (TLS termination, routing, security) how it differs from a forward…
XSS Prevention for Backend Engineers: Output Encoding, CSP, and Trust Boundaries
XSS Prevention for Backend Engineers covers encoding, CSP, and trust lines. Learn where output must be escaped and…
Load Balancing in System Design: Types, Algorithms, and Health Checks
What a load balancer does, how L4 and L7 balancing differ, which algorithm to pick (round robin, least…
Client-Server Architecture: The Model Every System Design Builds On
Client server architecture explained: how the client server model works, stateless vs stateful servers, and the request response…
The CAP Theorem and Consistency Models, Explained Practically
CAP says that during a network partition, a distributed system must choose between consistency and availability. Precise definitions,…
Availability vs Reliability vs Durability: Precise Definitions for Engineers
Availability is uptime, reliability is correct behavior over time, durability is data survival. Exact definitions, the nines table,…
Latency vs Throughput: The Two Numbers That Define Performance
Latency is the time one request takes; throughput is how many requests you serve. How they differ, why…
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…
Timeouts in Distributed Systems: Budgets, Cascading Failures, and Retry Safety
Timeouts in Distributed Systems bound how long a call may wait. Learn budgets, retry safety, and how to…
TCP vs UDP: Protocol Trade-offs for Modern Backend Systems
TCP vs UDP explains when you want reliable streams, when datagrams win, and how loss, latency, and head-of-line…
Tail Latency: Why P99 Matters More Than Averages in Distributed Systems
Tail Latency is the slow slice users actually feel. Learn why averages lie, how fan-out multiplies delay, and…