
Data is denormalized, and joins are generally done in the application code. Most NoSQL stores lack true ACID transactions and favor eventual consistency. We cannot build a general data store that is continually available, sequentially consistent, and tolerant to any partition failures. We can only build a system that has any two of these three properties.
Client caching
Horizontal Scaling means that you can scale by adding more servers into your pool of resources.Vertical Scaling means that you can scale by adding more power(CPU, RAM, storage, etc) to an existing server. Graphs databases offer high performance for data models with complex relationships, such as a social network. They are relatively new and are not yet widely-used; it might be more difficult to find development tools and resources. Google introduced Bigtable as the first wide column store, which influenced the open-source HBase often-used in the Hadoop ecosystem, and Cassandra from Facebook. Stores such as BigTable, HBase, and Cassandra maintain keys in lexicographic order, allowing efficient retrieval of selective key ranges. A key-value store is the basis for more complex systems such as a document store, and in some cases, a graph database.
Source(s) and further reading
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The API
I am providing code and resources in this repository to you under an open source license. Because this is my personal repository, the license you receive to my code and resources is from me and not my employer (Facebook). In an RPC, a client causes a procedure to execute on a different address space, usually a remote server. The procedure is coded as if it were a local procedure call, abstracting away the details of how to communicate with the server from the client program. Remote calls are usually slower and less reliable than local calls so it is helpful to distinguish RPC calls from local calls. Datagrams (analogous to packets) are guaranteed only at the datagram level.
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SQL vs NoSQL
The main concern here is that we get a sudden spike in traffic, say from a competition or a popular problem, that could overwhelm the containers running the user code. The reality is that 100k is still not a lot of users, and our API server, via horizontal scaling, should be able to handle this load without any issues. However, given code execution is CPU intensive, we need to be careful about how we manage the containers. With our core entities and API defined, we can now move on to the high-level design.
Table of Contents
For example, if there is only one copy of a file stored on a single server, then losing that server means losing the file. The master gets all the updates, which then ripple through to the slaves. Each slave outputs a message stating that it has received the update successfully, thus allowing the sending of subsequent updates. A reliable storage system, such as a SQL database, plays a crucial role in the coding competition platform. It enables users to revisit questions and easily access their code submissions. Along with this SHA256 hash, in the SQL DB we also store the relevant metadata, such as problem IDs, user IDs, and timestamps.
The single responsibility principle advocates for small and autonomous services that work together. Small teams with small services can plan more aggressively for rapid growth. Your interviewer might ask you about how you would retrieve and display static content such as problem statements. This gives you the opportunity to lead the discussion, clearly stating that the retrieval of problems is trivial, that it doesn’t need much time spent, and this can even be wordpress, static pages.
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Consistent Hashing
Scaling out using commodity machines is more cost efficient and results in higher availability than scaling up a single server on more expensive hardware, called Vertical Scaling. It is also easier to hire for talent working on commodity hardware than it is for specialized enterprise systems. Weak consistency works well in real time use cases such as VoIP, video chat, and realtime multiplayer games.
Disadvantage(s): reverse proxy
Instead, focus on the high-level concepts and how they would help to secure the system. If your interviewer is interested in a particular area, they'll ask you to dive deeper. To be concrete, this means just saying, "We'd use docker containers while limiting network access, setting CPU and memory bounds, and enforcing a timeout on the code execution" is likely sufficient. At this point we have a simple system that can handle all of our core functional requirements. Next, we'll layer in our non-functional requirements via deep dives. So with our decision made, let's update our high-level design to include a container service that will run the user's code and break down the flow of data through the system.
The client establishes a WebSocket connection through a process known as the WebSocket handshake. If the process succeeds, then the server and client can exchange data in both directions at any time. The WebSocket protocol enables communication between a client and a server with lower overheads, facilitating real-time data transfer from and to the server. In this way, a two-way (bi-directional) ongoing conversation can take place between a client and a server. On the other hand, NoSQL databases are horizontally scalable, meaning we can add more servers easily in our NoSQL database infrastructure to handle a lot of traffic. Any cheap commodity hardware or cloud instances can host NoSQL databases, thus making it a lot more cost-effective than vertical scaling.
In addition to choosing between SQL or NoSQL, it is helpful to understand which type of NoSQL database best fits your use case(s). We'll review key-value stores, document stores, wide column stores, and graph databases in the next section. By leveraging cloud infrastructure services from major providers like AWS, we can make our system more reliable and resilient. Utilizing multiple availability zones or regions ensures high availability and fault tolerance.
The client makes a request and waits for the server to respond with data. In Consistent Hashing, when the hash table is resized (e.g. a new cache host is added to the system), only ‘k/n’ keys need to be remapped where ‘k’ is the total number of keys and ‘n’ is the total number of servers. Recall that in a caching system using the ‘mod’ as the hash function, all keys need to be remapped. Sooner or later there comes a time when database performance is no longer satisfactory. Indexes can be created using one or more columns of a database table, providing the basis for both rapid random lookups and efficient access of ordered records.

Content is uploaded only when it is new or changed, minimizing traffic, but maximizing storage. DNS is hierarchical, with a few authoritative servers at the top level. Your router or ISP provides information about which DNS server(s) to contact when doing a lookup. Lower level DNS servers cache mappings, which could become stale due to DNS propagation delays. DNS results can also be cached by your browser or OS for a certain period of time, determined by the time to live (TTL). If a service consists of multiple components prone to failure, the service's overall availability depends on whether the components are in sequence or in parallel.
To help solidify this process, work through the System design interview questions with solutions section using the following steps. To learn software architecture and practice advanced system design interview questions take a look at Grokking the Advanced System Design Interview. The key to answering system design interview questions is understanding the big picture of how your system works.
Also, having that buffer could help you sleep at night knowing you're not going to lose any submissions, even in the event of a sudden spike in traffic (which I would not anticipate happening in this system). The extent to which a candidate should proactively lead the deep dives is determined by their seniority. For instance, in a mid-level interview, it is entirely reasonable for the interviewer to lead most of the deep dives. However, in senior and staff+ interviews, the expected level of initiative and responsibility from the candidate rises.
Implementing automated backup and disaster recovery mechanisms protects against data loss and enables quick recovery. We can use CDNs to distribute static assets, reducing latency and improving performance for users worldwide. Static assets in this case would refer to problem statements, images related to these problems, test cases, etc.