Introduction to System Design
What is System Design?
System design is the process of planning how different software components and services work together to build a reliable, scalable, and efficient system that meets users' needs and performs well under various loads.
The main goal of system design is to create a reliable, scalable, and efficient system that meets user needs and performs well.
- Planning and creating the overall structure of a system.
- Decides how different parts (servers, databases, services) work together.
- Focuses on making the system scalable, reliable, and efficient.
- Similar to designing a house layout before building.
Where is System Design Used?
- Building apps like Facebook, WhatsApp, Netflix
- Creating websites and online platforms
- Developing large-scale services like payment systems
- Designing cloud services and data centers
- Building IoT systems (smart devices, sensors)
Why is it Used?
- To make systems handle many users smoothly
- To ensure systems are fast and reliable
- To allow easy updates and adding new features
- To prevent system failures and downtime
- To optimize costs and resources used
Why is System Design Important?
- Ensures the system can handle increasing users and data.
- Keeps the system reliable and available all the time.
- Helps optimize costs by choosing the right resources.
- Makes it easier to maintain and update the system later.
- Improves user experience with fast and dependable services.
System design is important because it helps build systems that can handle more users and data without breaking. It also makes the system reliable, fast, and easy to maintain.
Key Challenges in System Design
- Scalability: Making sure the system can grow smoothly with more users.
- Reliability: Ensuring the system stays up and running even if some parts fail.
- Performance: Delivering quick responses and minimizing delays.
- Data Consistency: Keeping data accurate and synchronized across different parts.
- Security: Protecting data from unauthorized access and attacks.
- Cost Management: Using resources wisely to avoid overspending.
All Topics in System Design
Client-Server Architecture is a way of designing applications where one computer, called the client, asks for information or services from another computer, called the server.
IP Address is a unique number that identifies a device on the internet, similar to its home address.
DNS (Domain Name System) helps convert website names like google.com into IP addresses that computers understand.
Proxy / Reverse Proxy acts as an intermediate layer that helps hide your real IP address or manages internet traffic more efficiently.
Latency is the delay or time it takes for data to travel from one place to another.
HTTP/HTTPS are protocols used to transfer web pages. HTTPS is secure because it encrypts the data.
APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) are tools that allow different software programs to communicate with each other.
Rest API is a common method for software to communicate over the internet using simple rules.
GraphQL allows asking for just the data you need from a server, making data retrieval flexible.
Databases are organized storage spaces for data, like a digital filing cabinet.
Moving on to the next set, SQL vs NoSQL compares data storage methods: SQL stores data in tables and is good for structured data, while NoSQL stores data in flexible formats like documents and is good for unstructured data.
Vertical Scaling involves making one server bigger and more powerful.
Horizontal Scaling adds more servers to handle increased traffic.
Load Balancers distribute internet traffic evenly across multiple servers to improve
performance.
Database Indexing speeds up data searches by creating quick lookup methods.
Replication creates copies of data on different servers to prevent data loss.
Sharding divides large databases into smaller parts to manage more data effectively.
Vertical Partitioning separates different types of data within a database vertically for better organization.
Caching temporarily stores data closer to users to make access faster.
Denormalization involves copying some data into multiple places to make data retrieval easier.
The CAP Theorem explains that in distributed systems, you can only have two of these three qualities at the same time: Consistency, Availability, and Partition Tolerance.
Blob Storage is used to store large files like videos and images.
CDN (Content Delivery Network) is a network of servers worldwide that speeds up website content delivery by bringing data closer to users.
WebSockets enable real-time communication between a server and a web browser, useful for instant updates.
Webhooks are automated messages that apps send to each other when certain events happen.
Microservices break large applications into smaller, independent parts for easier management.
Message Queues organize and manage messages passed between applications to ensure smooth operation.
Rate Limiting restricts the number of requests a user or app can make in a given time to prevent overload.
API Gateways manage, control, and secure access to multiple APIs.
Idempotency ensures that doing the same operation multiple times produces the same result without causing errors.
Top 10 System Design Interview Questions:
1. What is System Design ?
2. what is the difference between stateful and stateless systems ?
3. what is the load balancer and why is it used ?
4. what is fault tolerance, and how do you design a fault-tolerant system ?
5. what is catching and why is it important in system design ?
6. what is the purpose of content delivery network (CDN) ?
7. what is the difference between horizontal and vertical scaling ?
8. what is CAP theorem ?
9. what is microservices architecture and how is it different from a monolithic architecture ?
10. what is sharding in database design ?
Conclusion
System design is a vital skill for creating reliable, scalable, and efficient software systems. It helps us build applications that can handle increasing users, data, and traffic without breaking or slowing down. By understanding both the concepts and challenges—like scaling, security, and data management—we can make better decisions during development.
Designing good systems is important because it improves performance, keeps services available, and makes maintenance easier. That's why companies ask about system design in interviews—to see if candidates can think critically, plan well, and create solutions that work at a large scale. Developing strong system design skills opens up more opportunities and helps build better technology for the world.
Remember, to master system design, practice, learn from real-world examples, and keep updating your knowledge. It’s a powerful skill that makes you a better engineer and helps build the future of what’s next in technology.
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