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Ritik Banger
Ritik Banger

Posted on • Edited on

Best Practices for Designing Scalable and Resilient Systems

Hey developers! Are you looking to design robust systems that can handle changing requirements and unexpected failures? Here are some key points to consider:

  1. Prioritize Requirements: Before diving into design, ensure you understand both the functional and non-functional requirements of your system.

  2. Define Use Cases Clearly: Clearly define the system's use cases and constraints to guide your design decisions effectively.

  3. Embrace Tradeoffs: Remember, there's no perfect solution. Design is about making tradeoffs that best suit your project's needs.

  4. Flexibility is Key: Assume requirements will change, and design your system with flexibility in mind to adapt to these changes smoothly.

  5. Ensure Fault Tolerance: Plan for failures by making your system fault-tolerant, anticipating that everything can and will fail at some point.

  6. Avoid Over-Engineering: Don't add functionality until it's necessary. Over-engineering can lead to unnecessary complexity and maintenance overhead.

  7. Scalability Matters: Design your system with scalability in mind from the beginning.

  8. Horizontal Scaling Preference: Prefer horizontal scaling over vertical scaling for better scalability and resource utilization.

  9. Implement Load Balancers: Ensure high availability and evenly distribute traffic with load balancers.

  10. Choose Databases Wisely: Use SQL databases for structured data and ACID transactions, while opting for NoSQL databases for unstructured data.

  11. Utilize Database Sharding: Scale SQL databases horizontally with database sharding for improved performance.

  12. Optimize Data Retrieval: Utilize database indexing and search engines for efficient data retrieval.

  13. Prevent Overloads: Implement rate limiting to prevent system overload and potential denial-of-service (DOS) attacks.

  14. Real-Time Communication: Use WebSockets for real-time communication needs.

  15. Failure Detection: Employ heartbeat mechanisms for timely failure detection.

  16. Asynchronous Communication: Consider using message queues for asynchronous communication between components.

  17. Partition Large Datasets: Implement data partitioning and sharding for handling large datasets effectively.

  18. Denormalize for Performance: Consider denormalizing databases for read-heavy workloads to improve performance.

  19. Decoupled Systems: Utilize event-driven architecture for building decoupled systems.

  20. Reduce Latency: Use content delivery networks (CDNs) to reduce latency for a global user base.

  21. Optimize for Write-Heavy Apps: Implement write-through cache for write-heavy applications to improve performance.

  22. Optimize for Read-Heavy Apps: Use read-through cache for read-heavy applications to enhance performance.

  23. Media Storage: Utilize blob/object storage for storing media files like images, videos, and documents.

  24. Ensure Redundancy: Implement data replication and redundancy to avoid single points of failure.

  25. Handle Traffic Spikes: Implement autoscaling to handle sudden traffic spikes seamlessly.

  26. Background Task Processing: Utilize asynchronous processing for running background tasks efficiently.

  27. Idempotent Operations: Make operations idempotent wherever possible to simplify retry logic and error handling.

  28. Microservices Architecture: Consider using microservices for flexibility, scalability, and maintainability.

  29. Analytics and Reporting: Utilize data lakes or data warehouses for analytics and reporting purposes.

By incorporating these best practices into your system design, you can create scalable, resilient, and high-performing applications that meet the demands of today's dynamic environments.

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