Part 1: Foundations of System Design
In this Part, you will gain a comprehensive understanding of the fundamental concepts and principles that underpin modern system design. We’ll start by exploring the essence of system design, its various types, and its critical importance in today’s technology-driven industry.
As we delve deeper, you’ll learn about the key principles of distributed systems, which form the backbone of most large-scale applications today. We will cover crucial concepts such as consistency, availability, partition tolerance, latency, durability, reliability, and fault tolerance.
We’ll then explore the theoretical foundations that guide system design decisions. You will learn about important theorems and algorithms such as the CAP theorem, PACELC theorem, Paxos and Raft algorithms, and the Byzantine Generals Problem. We’ll also introduce you to practical concepts such as consistent hashing, Bloom filters, and HyperLogLog, which are frequently used in large-scale system design.
By the end of this section, you'll have a solid theoretical foundation that will inform your approach to designing and architecting large-scale systems.
This Part has the following chapters.
- Chapter 1, Basics of System Design
- Chapter 2, Distributed System Attributes
- Chapter 3, Distributed Systems Theorems and Data Structures
