Backend
Database Sharding Strategies and Trade-Offs
A practical guide to database sharding — covering partitioning strategies, shard key selection, cross-shard queries, and the operational complexity that comes with distributing data.
·5 min read
Tags
Distributed Systems
32 articles · Page 3 of 3
Architecture
Understanding Consensus Algorithms in Distributed Systems
A practical guide to consensus algorithms — covering Raft, Paxos, and leader election patterns with real-world examples of when and why distributed systems need them.
·4 min read
Architecture
Designing Resilient Distributed Systems with Timeouts and Retries
How to implement timeouts, retries, and backoff strategies that prevent cascading failures in distributed architectures.
·4 min read
Backend
Rate Limiting Algorithms: Token Bucket, Sliding Window, and Beyond
A deep dive into rate limiting algorithms with implementations, trade-offs, and guidance on choosing the right approach for your API.
·4 min read
Backend
Idempotency in API Design: Safe Retries for Distributed Systems
Network failures mean requests are retried — idempotent API design ensures that processing the same request twice produces the same result, preventing duplicate charges and orders.
·4 min read
Architecture
The Circuit Breaker Pattern: Failing Gracefully
When a downstream service is failing, continuing to send requests makes everything worse — the circuit breaker pattern stops the cascade by failing fast.
·3 min read
Architecture
Event-Driven Architecture: Patterns and Pitfalls
Event-driven systems decouple producers from consumers through asynchronous message passing — but eventual consistency, ordering guarantees, and idempotency introduce real complexity.
·3 min read
Architecture
Message Queues in Practice
RabbitMQ, Redis Streams, or Kafka — understanding the messaging patterns behind decoupled, resilient systems and when each tool fits.
·3 min read