System Design Roadmap

Table des matières

System Design Roadmap............................................................................................... 1
1. Backend Architecture............................................................................................. 3
1.1 Communication Models..................................................................................... 3
1.3 Scaling........................................................................................................... 3
1.4 Load Balancing................................................................................................ 3
1.5 Caching......................................................................................................... 4
1.6 Concurrency.................................................................................................... 4
1.7 Proxy............................................................................................................ 4
1.8 Gateway......................................................................................................... 4
1.9 Serverless....................................................................................................... 4
1.10 CQRS (Command Query Responsibility Segregation)...............................................5
1.11 Scheduling.................................................................................................... 5
1.12 Performance.................................................................................................. 5
1.13 Logging & Monitoring..................................................................................... 5
1.2 Microservice Patterns........................................................................................ 6
2. Database Architecture............................................................................................. 6
2.1 Relational Databases.......................................................................................... 6
2.2 NoSQL Databases............................................................................................. 6
2.3 Data Management Techniques..............................................................................7
3. Security.............................................................................................................. 8
3.1 Application Security.......................................................................................... 8
3.2 Encryption/Decryption....................................................................................... 8
3.3 Network Security.............................................................................................. 8
3.4 Authentication and Authorization..........................................................................9
3.5 Access Control................................................................................................. 9
3.6 Auditing and Monitoring..................................................................................... 9
3.7 Data Protection................................................................................................ 9
1. Backend Architecture
1.1 Communication Models
1.1.1 Synchronous (Orchestration with REST):
1. Retry Mechanisms: Consider idempotency to avoid duplicating actions in retries.
2. Fault Tolerance: Apply Circuit Breaker patterns to detect and recover from failures. A Circuit
Breaker helps to prevent a system from making repeated calls to a failing service, which could
lead to cascading failures. It temporarily halts the requests and retries after a specified time
interval.
3. Rate Limiter: Prevent server overload by limiting the number of requests per user or client.
4. RESTful API Design: Keep API interfaces simple and intuitive, following REST principles to
ensure scalability and maintainability.
1.1.2 Asynchronous (Choreography with Publish/Subscribe):
1. Message Queues: Use queues to decouple components and handle high traffic without losing
messages. Consider trade-offs between consistency and availability.
2. Brokers: Implement a message broker like Kafka for durable, ordered, and distributed
messaging.
3. Exchanges: Design exchanges that efficiently route messages to the appropriate queues, using
direct, fanout, or topic-based routing.
4. Topics: Utilize topics for scalable pub/sub messaging, enabling efficient data distribution.
5. Publisher/Subscriber: Consider the trade-offs between consistency (ensuring every message is
processed) and availability (quickly handling messages).

1.3 Scaling
1. Horizontal Scaling: Prioritize horizontal scaling for stateless services, allowing the system to
handle more load by adding more servers.
2. Vertical Scaling: Use for stateful components, understanding the limitations of vertical
scaling.
3. AutoScaling: Implement AutoScaling to dynamically adjust resources based on real-time
demand, ensuring cost-efficiency.

1.4 Load Balancing

1.4.1 Algorithms:
1. Round Robin: Simple and effective for evenly distributing load across servers.
2. Least Connections: Use in environments where connections have varied lifetimes.
3. IP Hashing: Ensure session stickiness for stateful services.
4. Weighted Round Robin: Distribute load according to server capacity, useful in heterogeneous
server environments.
1.4.2 Global Load Balancing:
1. Use to distribute traffic across multiple data centers for improved fault tolerance and disaster
recovery.

1.5 Caching
1.5.1 Types:
1. In-Memory Caching: Use for low-latency access to frequently accessed data.
2. Distributed Caching: Scale cache horizontally to handle large amounts of data across multiple
servers.
1.5.2 Strategies:
1. Write-Through: Maintain consistency between cache and database, suitable for write-heavy
systems.
2. Write-Behind: Optimize for high throughput, with the risk of potential data loss.
3. Cache Invalidation: Implement strategies to keep cache data fresh, balancing between cache
hit rate and data accuracy.
4. Cache Sharding: Distribute cache data across multiple nodes to avoid bottlenecks, similar to
horizontal scaling in databases.

1.6 Concurrency
1. Thread Management: Optimize thread pools to handle large numbers of concurrent requests
without overwhelming system resources.
2. Locks and Semaphores: Use distributed locks for managing concurrency across distributed
systems, ensuring data consistency.
1.6.1 Concurrency Patterns:
1. Producer-Consumer: Use in scenarios where the production of data and its processing are
decoupled, improving scalability.
2. Fork-Join: Parallelize tasks to reduce processing time in large-scale computations.
3. Actor Model: Encapsulate state within actors to manage concurrency without locks, useful in
high-concurrency systems.

1.7 Proxy
1. Forward Proxy: Implement for client anonymity, caching, or filtering outgoing traffic.
2. Reverse Proxy: Use for load balancing, SSL termination, or hiding backend server details,
enhancing security and scalability.

1.8 Gateway
1. Multi-Threaded Server: Use in high-performance scenarios where handling multiple
connections simultaneously is necessary.
2. Single-Threaded Server: Consider for simpler, I/O-bound tasks where low resource overhead
is critical.
1.9 Serverless
1. Function as a Service (FaaS): Deploy microservices as functions, focusing on modularity and
scalability without server management.
2. Event-Driven Architecture: Build systems that respond to events in real-time, enabling
scalable and loosely coupled architectures.
3. Cold Start Mitigation: Consider strategies to reduce cold start times, particularly for latency-
sensitive applications.

1.10 CQRS (Command Query Responsibility Segregation)

1. Command Model: Optimize for write operations, ensuring consistency and integrity of
commands.
2. Query Model: Optimize for read operations, ensuring scalability and responsiveness. Use
eventual consistency where applicable.

1.11 Scheduling
1. Cron Jobs: Schedule recurring tasks like data backups or system cleanups, ensuring tasks run
efficiently without impacting performance.
2. Task Queues: Use to process background tasks asynchronously, decoupling task execution
from request handling.

1.12 Performance
1. Latency: Continuously monitor and reduce latency to improve user experience. Use
techniques like CDNs and edge computing.
2. Throughput: Increase throughput by optimizing database queries, reducing response times,
and using parallel processing.
3. Response Time: Prioritize optimizing response time for user-facing services, using tools like
A/B testing to measure improvements.

1.13 Logging & Monitoring

1. Centralized Logging: Implement a centralized logging system using tools like ELK
(Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana) or Graylog to aggregate and analyze logs from all services
in one place.
2. Log Levels: Use appropriate log levels (e.g., INFO, DEBUG, ERROR) to differentiate
between regular operations, debugging information, and critical errors.
3. Distributed Tracing: Implement distributed tracing (e.g., Jaeger, Zipkin) to trace requests
across microservices and understand the flow and performance of requests through the system.
4. Metrics Collection: Use monitoring tools like Prometheus, Grafana, or Datadog to collect and
visualize key performance metrics such as CPU usage, memory consumption, and request
latencies.
5. Alerting: Set up alerting mechanisms to notify the team of critical issues (e.g., using
PagerDuty or Opsgenie) based on predefined thresholds for metrics.
6. Health Checks: Implement health checks for services to ensure they are operating as expected,
and use this information for load balancers and orchestrators to route traffic appropriately.
 7. Monitoring Dashboards: Create comprehensive dashboards that display the health,
performance, and status of all components in the system for easy monitoring and
troubleshooting.

1.2 Microservice Patterns

1.2.1 Circuit Breaker:
1. Protects the system from cascading failures by stopping the flow of requests to a failing
service. It has three states: Closed (normal operation), Open (requests are not sent to the
service), and Half-Open (a limited number of requests are sent to test if the service has
recovered).
1.2.2 Service Discovery:
1. Dynamically discovers services in a microservice environment, enabling services to scale up
or down and manage their availability. Tools like Eureka or Consul can be used for this
purpose.
1.2.3 API Gateway:
1. Acts as a reverse proxy to route requests to appropriate services. It handles tasks like request
routing, authentication, rate limiting, and response caching. An API Gateway can also serve as
a centralized entry point for all client requests.
1.2.4 Bulkhead Pattern:
1. Isolates services into separate pools to prevent a failure in one service from affecting others.
This pattern is particularly useful in limiting the scope of failures in microservice
architectures.
1.2.5 Sidecar Pattern:
1. Deploys helper services (such as logging, monitoring, or proxy services) alongside the main
service to handle common concerns like service discovery, configuration, or communication.
The sidecar is attached to the service but runs in its own process.
1.2.6 Saga Pattern:
1. Manages long-running transactions by breaking them into smaller, manageable pieces with
compensating actions in case of failure. This pattern is essential for maintaining consistency
across distributed services without relying on ACID transactions.
1.2.7 Event Sourcing:
1. Captures all changes to an application's state as a sequence of events. Instead of updating the
database, every change is stored as an event. This pattern is often used in conjunction with
CQRS.

2. Database Architecture
2.1 Relational Databases
1. Normalization: Focus on reducing redundancy while maintaining performance, understanding
the trade-offs between normalization and performance.
2. SQL Optimization: Use indexing and query optimization techniques to ensure efficient data
retrieval.
2.2 NoSQL Databases
1. Document Stores: Use for flexible, schema-less data storage, optimizing for unstructured or
semi-structured data.
2. Key-Value Stores: Use for high-speed, simple data retrieval in scenarios requiring low-latency
access.
3. Column Stores: Optimize for wide-column data sets, balancing between write performance
and query speed.
4. Graph Databases: Implement for highly connected data, where relationships between entities
are as important as the entities themselves.

2.3 Data Management Techniques

2.3.1 ACID vs BASE:
1. ACID: Use for systems requiring strong consistency and reliability.
2. BASE: Use in large-scale distributed systems where availability and partition tolerance are
prioritized over immediate consistency.
2.3.2 Sharding:
1. Range Sharding: Implement for ordered data, understanding the trade-offs in managing shard
key hotspots.
2. Hash Sharding: Distribute data evenly to prevent hotspots, but consider the complexity in
querying.
2.3.3 Indexing:
1. B-Tree Indexes: Optimize for range queries and ordered data, commonly used in relational
databases.
2. Hash Indexes: Use for fast lookups on equality queries, where order is not important.
3. Full-Text Indexes: Implement for efficient text search capabilities, particularly in content-
heavy applications.
2.3.4 Partitioning:
1. Range Partitioning: Use for time-series or other sequential data, ensuring even data
distribution.
2. List Partitioning: Implement based on predefined categories, useful in multi-tenant systems.
3. Hash Partitioning: Distribute data across partitions to ensure scalability, considering the trade-
offs in complexity.
2.3.5 Replication:
1. Master-Slave Replication: Use for read scalability and data redundancy, understanding the
potential lag in data propagation.
2. Multi-Master Replication: Implement for high availability and fault tolerance, balancing
between consistency and complexity.
2.3.6 Denormalization:
1. Precomputed Views: Use to speed up read-heavy queries, accepting the trade-offs in data
redundancy.
 2. Redundant Data: Maintain multiple representations of the same data to optimize for different
access patterns, understanding the trade-offs in consistency.

3. Security
3.1 Application Security
3.1.1 OWASP Top Ten:
1. A1-Injection: Protect against injection attacks by using prepared statements and parameterized
queries, ensuring input validation.
2. A2-Broken Authentication: Implement robust authentication mechanisms, including MFA,
session management, and password hashing.
3. A3-Sensitive Data Exposure: Encrypt sensitive data both at rest and in transit, using strong
encryption algorithms.
4. A4-XML External Entities (XXE): Disable DTDs and use secure XML parsers to prevent
XXE vulnerabilities.
5. A5-Broken Access Control: Enforce strict access controls, using RBAC or ABAC (Attribute-
Based Access Control) models.
6. A6-Security Misconfiguration: Regularly audit and update configurations to ensure security,
using automation tools like Ansible.
7. A7-Cross-Site Scripting (XSS): Implement CSP (Content Security Policy) and sanitize user
inputs to prevent XSS attacks.
8. A8-Insecure Deserialization: Avoid using serialized objects from untrusted sources, and use
safe serialization libraries.
9. A9-Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities: Continuously monitor and update
dependencies, using tools like Dependabot or Snyk.
10. A10-Insufficient Logging & Monitoring: Implement centralized logging and use SIEM
(Security Information and Event Management) tools for proactive threat detection and
response.

3.2 Encryption/Decryption
1. Symmetric Encryption: Use AES-256 for encrypting sensitive data, balancing between
performance and security.
2. Asymmetric Encryption: Use RSA or ECC for secure key exchanges, ensuring secure
communication channels.
3. PKI (Public Key Infrastructure):
o Certificates: Use for securing communications (SSL/TLS), ensuring that certificates
are regularly renewed and managed.
o Certificate Authorities (CAs): Use trusted CAs for issuing certificates, or establish an
internal CA for organizational needs.

3.3 Network Security

1. SSL/TLS: Ensure the use of strong encryption protocols for securing data in transit, regularly
updating to the latest standards.
 2. SSH: Use for secure remote access, with key-based authentication and strict access controls.
3. Firewall Configuration: Implement network segmentation and use Web Application Firewalls
(WAFs) to protect against web-based attacks, ensuring only necessary traffic is allowed.

3.4 Authentication and Authorization

1. OAuth 2.0: Use for secure authorization, carefully managing scopes and permissions to limit
access.
2. JWT (JSON Web Tokens): Implement for stateless authentication, ensuring tokens are
securely stored and managed.
3. Keycloak: Deploy for enterprise-level identity and access management, supporting various
authentication mechanisms and SSO.
4. SSO (Single Sign-On): Use to provide seamless user authentication across multiple services,
improving security and user experience.

3.5 Access Control

1. RBAC (Role-Based Access Control): Implement to manage user permissions based on roles,
simplifying access management.
2. ABAC (Attribute-Based Access Control): Use for fine-grained access control based on user
attributes, environmental conditions, and more.

3.6 Auditing and Monitoring

1. Centralized Logging: Implement centralized logging for monitoring system activities, making
it easier to detect and respond to security incidents.
2. SIEM (Security Information and Event Management): Use for aggregating and analyzing log
data to detect potential threats and automate responses.
3. Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS): Deploy IDS to monitor network traffic for suspicious
activities, helping to identify potential security breaches.

3.7 Data Protection

1. Data Masking: Implement data masking techniques to protect sensitive information in non-
production environments, reducing the risk of data leaks.
2. Data Anonymization: Apply anonymization techniques to protect user privacy, especially in
compliance with regulations like GDPR.
3. Backup and Recovery: Regularly back up critical data and have a disaster recovery plan in
place to ensure data integrity and availability in case of a breach or failure.