System Design Deep Dive: Real-World Distributed Systems
Behind the Curtain of the World's Biggest Systems
Ever wondered how Amazon never blinks during Black Friday? Or how Google serves up answers in milliseconds across the globe? These feats aren’t magic — they’re architecture. This course pulls back the curtain on the distributed systems that make the modern internet run.
Course Overview
Instead of starting with theory, we go straight into the real thing: battle-tested architectures from the world’s most scaled companies. You’ll reverse-engineer how systems like GFS, Bigtable, Spanner, and DynamoDB tackle trade-offs, recover from failure, and scale to billions of users. More than a technical breakdown, each case study becomes a lens to sharpen your design instincts, helping you see not just how systems work, but why they work that way.
Whether you’re an engineer building at scale or someone aiming to lead technical conversations with confidence, this is where you learn how real distributed systems are designed, evolved, and battle-hardened. This course offers a comprehensive exploration of the architectures powering industry giants like Google, Meta, and Amazon.
Through detailed case studies, you’ll dissect systems such as the Google File System (GFS), Bigtable, Spanner, Facebook’s Tectonic File System, and Amazon’s DynamoDB. Each module is crafted to provide insights into the challenges these systems address and the innovative solutions they’ve implemented.
By the end of this course, you’ll understand the theoretical underpinnings of distributed systems and gain practical knowledge applicable to real-world scenarios, enhancing your ability to design scalable, reliable, and efficient systems.
A modern approach to grokking the System Design Interview. Master distributed systems & architecture patterns for System Design Interviews and beyond. Developed by FAANG engineers. Used by 100K+ devs.
What You'll Learn
- Analyze the design and functionality of systems like GFS, Bigtable, Spanner, Tectonic, and DynamoDB
- Understand the core principles that guide the architecture of large-scale distributed systems
- Learn to evaluate the trade-offs in system design decisions, balancing factors like consistency, availability, and partition tolerance
- Gain insights into techniques for achieving scalability and high performance in distributed environments
- Explore strategies for building systems that maintain functionality despite failures
- Delve into consensus algorithms like Paxos and their role in maintaining system consistency
Prologue
- Case Studies: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
File Systems
- Introduction to Distributed File Systems
Google File System (GFS)
- GFS Deep Dive for System Design
- GFS File Operations
- Detailed Design of GFS
- Workflow of Create and Read File Operations in GFS
- Workflow of Write Operations in GFS
- Workflow of Delete and Snapshot Operations in GFS
- Relaxed Data Consistency Model
Dealing with Data - Inconsistencies in GFS
- Metadata Consistency Model of GFS
- Evaluation of GFS
- Quiz on GFS
Google Colossus File System
- Colossus Deep Dive for System Design
- Design and Evaluation of Colossus
- Quiz on Colossus
Facebook's Tectonic File System
- Tectonic Deep Dive for System Design
- ZippyDB Design
- Detailed Design of Tectonic
- Multitenancy in Tectonic
- Tenant-specific Optimization in Tectonic
- Empirical Evaluation of Tectonic’s Functional Requirements
- Evaluation of Tectonic
- Quiz on Tectonic
Databases
- Introduction to Distributed Databases
Google Bigtable
- Bigtable Deep Dive for System Design
- Data Model of Bigtable
- Detailed Design of Bigtable: Part I
- Detailed Design of Bigtable: Part II
- Design Refinements in Bigtable
- Evaluation of Bigtable
- Quiz on Bigtable
Google Megastore
- Megastore Deep Dive for System Design
- High-level Design for Better
- Availability and Scalability
- Data Model of Megastore
- Replication in Megastore
- Evaluation of Megastore
- Quiz on Megastore
Google Spanner
- Spanner Deep Dive for System Design
- Detailed Design of Spanner
- Database Buckets and Data Model of Spanner
- TrueTime API in Spanner
- Spanner, TrueTime, and the CAP Theorem
- Concurrency Control in Spanner
- Database Operations in Spanner
- Evaluation of Spanner
- Quiz on Spanner
Key-value Stores
- Introduction to Key-value Stores
Many-core Key-value Store
- Many-Core Key-Value Store Deep Dive for System Design
- Estimations and Limitations of a Many-core System
- Detailed Design of a Many-core System
- Evaluation of the Many-core System
- Quiz on Many-core Systems
Scaling Memcache
- Scaling Memcache Deep Dive for System Design
- Single-server Level of Memcache
- Cluster Level of Memcache
- Regional Level of Memcache
- Cross-regional Level of Memcache
- Evaluation of Memcache
- Quiz on Memcache
SILT
- SILT Deep Dive for System Design
- High-level Design of SILT
- A Write-friendly Store for SILT: Part I
- A Write-friendly Store for SILT: Part II
- A Write-friendly Store for SILT: Part III
- Intermediary Store(s) in SILT
- A Memory-efficient Store for SILT: Part I
- A Memory-efficient Store for SILT: Part II
- A Memory-efficient Store for SILT: Part III
- Request Flows in SILT
- Evaluating and Extending the
- Design of SILT
- Quiz on SILT
Amazon DynamoDB
- DynamoDB Deep Dive for System Design
- High-level Design of DynamoDB
- No Fixed Schema in DynamoDB
- Partitioning and Replication in DynamoDB
- Adapting to Traffic Patterns in DynamoDB
- Durability and Correctness in DynamoDB
- Ensuring High Availability in DynamoDB
- Quiz on DynamoDB
Concurrency Management
- Introduction to Concurrency Management
Two-phase Locking (2PL)
- Two-Phase Locking (2PL) Deep Dive for System Design
- Analysis and Evaluation of Two-Phase Locking (2PL)
- Quiz on 2PL
Google Chubby Locking Service
- Chubby Locking Deep Dive for System Design
- Detailed Design of Chubby: Part I
- Detailed Design of Chubby: Part II
- Detailed Design of Chubby: Part III
- Detailed Design of Chubby: Part IV
- The Rationale Behind Chubby’s Design
- Evaluation of Chubby
- Quiz on Chubby
ZooKeeper
- ZooKeeper Deep Dive for System Design
- Detailed Design of ZooKeeper
- Primitives of ZooKeeper
- Evaluation of ZooKeeper
- Quiz on ZooKeeper
Big Data Processing: Batch to Stream Processing
- Introduction to Big Data Processing Systems
MapReduce
- MapReduce Deep Dive for System Design
- High-level Design of MapReduce
- MapReduce: Detailed Design
- Design Refinements in MapReduce: Part I
- Design Refinements in MapReduce: Part II
- MapReduce: Evaluation
- Concluding MapReduce
- Quiz on MapReduce
Spark
- Spark Deep Dive for System Design
- Requirements of Spark
- High-level Design of Spark
- Resilient Distributed Datasets of Spark
- Parallel Operations in Spark
- Shared Variables in Spark
- Detailed Design of Spark
- Refinements in Spark
- Evaluation of Spark
- Quiz on Spark
Kafka
- Kafka Deep Dive for System Design
- High-level Design of Kafka
- Detailed Design of Kafka
- Efficiency of Kafka
- Distributed Coordination in Kafka
- Delivery Guarantees of Kafka
- Evaluation of Kafka
- Quiz on Kafka
Consensus
- Introduction to Consensus in Distributed Systems
Understanding Consensus: Two Generals, FLP, & Byzantine Generals
- Consensus Prerequisites and Two Generals’ Problem
- FLP Impossibility
- The Byzantine Generals Problem
- Let AI Evaluate Your Understanding of Consensus Fundamentals
Two-phase Commit
- Two-Phase Commit (2PC) Deep Dive for System Design
- Working of the Two-Phase Commit Protocol
- Failures in the Two-Phase Commit Protocol
- Quiz on Two-Phase Commit
State Machine Replication
- State Machine Replication Deep Dive for System Design
State Machines - Replication and Coordination of State Machines
- Ordering Requests: Part I
- Ordering Requests: Part II
- Fault Tolerance for Outputs and Clients
- Protocols for Maintaining Fault Tolerance: Part I
- Protocols for Maintaining Fault Tolerance: Part II
- SMR in Practice Via a Log
- Quiz on State Machine Replication
Paxos
- Paxos Deep Dive for System Design
- Basic Paxos Protocol Design
- Basic Paxos in Action
- The Rationale behind Paxos
- Design Choices
- Multi-Paxos
- Quiz on Paxos
Raft
- Raft Deep Dive for System Design
- Raft’s Basics and High-Level Workflow
- Raft’s Leader Election Protocol
- Raft’s Log Replication Protocol
- Raft’s Safety, Fault-Tolerance, and Availability Protocols
- Raft’s Cluster Membership Changes
- Log Compaction and Client Interaction in Raft
- Quiz on Raft
Epilogue
- Conclusion
Dive Deep into Real-World Distributed Systems
Learn how large-scale systems handle data, scalability, and reliability through guided examples and expert insights.