Paxos Explained: The Algorithm Behind Most Consensus Systems
The Paxos algorithm explained: the paxos roles (proposers, acceptors, and learners) how prepare and accept ballots run, the…
Tag
system-design
58 articles
Raft Explained: Leader Election, Log Replication, and Safety
The Raft consensus algorithm explained: raft leader election with randomized timeouts, raft log replication through a strong leader,…
Consensus Algorithms Compared: Paxos, Raft, ZAB, and PBFT
Consensus algorithms compared: Paxos and Multi-Paxos, the raft vs paxos difference, ZAB inside ZooKeeper, and byzantine fault tolerant…
Distributed Consensus: Why Agreement Is Hard
Distributed consensus explained: the consensus problem, why agreement is hard under partial failure, the quorum math behind majority…
Consistent Hashing: How Distributed Systems Place Data
Consistent hashing explained: the hash ring, virtual nodes, and the rendezvous hashing alternative; the placement scheme that lets…
What Is a Distributed System? Partial Failure, Clocks, and the Fallacies
What makes a system distributed: several machines cooperating over a network, partial failure as the defining property, no…
Elasticsearch Architecture: Inverted Indexes, Shards, and Near-Real-Time Search
Elasticsearch architecture from the inside: the inverted index and its term dictionary, segments and the near-real-time refresh, shards…
Data Partitioning: Vertical, Horizontal, and the Sharding Question
Data partitioning explained: the umbrella concept under sharding, horizontal vs vertical partitioning, the partitioning vs sharding vocabulary sorted,…
Read/Write Separation: Scaling Reads with Replicas
Read/write separation: routing reads to replicas with the staleness audit, replica routing mechanics, replication lag as the governing…
Search Engines in System Design: When and How to Add Search
Search engine system design: search vs database queries, when to add elasticsearch, the indexing pipeline that keeps the…
Blob and Object Storage: Storing Files at Scale
Object storage explained: the flat key-space and HTTP model, blob vs object naming, object vs block vs file…
SQL vs NoSQL: Choosing a Data Model Under Real Constraints
SQL vs NoSQL decided on real constraints: what relational databases guarantee, the types of nosql databases, when to…