System Design is the systematic approach of devising a structure for various elements, interfaces, and modules within a system, along with the provision of relevant data essential for the implementation of these components. It serves as the fundamental principle guiding the development of distributed systems.
In the realm of System Design, the process encompasses the identification of data sources. It is an intuitive methodology focused on defining, creating, and organizing a framework to meet the needs and requirements of specific industries.
System Development Life Cycle
The design of any system is not a one-day or one-step process. It involves a sequence of steps, phases, or stages that collectively contribute to the development of a robust system. This sequence is formally known as the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC). A comprehensive understanding of the system’s life cycle is crucial, similar to defining the scope for a variable in a code chunk. This understanding allows us to delve deeply into the intricate interactions of large-scale systems within real-world machines.
System Design serves as a critical phase in system development, offering the foundational framework to navigate exceptional scenarios by embodying the business logic of the software.
Based on the outlined steps in the SDLC, it becomes evident that system design serves as a cornerstone. Regardless of the excellence in coding execution, its significance diminishes if the underlying design is lacking. This insight underscores why inquiries about system design are ubiquitous in every software development phase.
Goals of System Design
- Practicality: The system should target the specific audience for which it is designed.
- Accuracy: The system design must fulfill both functional and non-functional requirements comprehensively.
- Completeness: The system design should meet all user requirements effectively.
- Efficiency: The system should utilize resources optimally, avoiding both overuse and underuse, to ensure high throughput and low response time.
- Reliability: The system should operate in a nearly fault-free environment for a specified duration.
- Optimization: Time and space considerations should be carefully addressed for individual components to function optimally within the system.
- Scalability: The system design should be adaptable over time to accommodate changing user needs, akin to successful.
Elements of System Design
Here are some key constituents of System Design, briefly touched upon
- Load balancers: A pivotal element essential for enhancing scalability, ensuring availability, and optimizing performance in systems.
- Key-Value Stores: These storage systems function akin to hash tables, utilizing distributed hash tables for efficient data organization and retrieval.
- Databases: Organized collections of data designed for easy access and modification.
- Blob Storage: A repository for unstructured data, particularly suited for entities like YouTube and Netflix, where binary large objects (blobs) are stored.
- Rate Limiters: Tools that establish the maximum number of requests a service can handle.
- Monitoring System: Software used by system administrators to oversee infrastructure elements such as bandwidth, CPU, routers, switches, etc.
- Distributed System Messaging Queue: A medium facilitating transactions between producers and consumers in a distributed system.
- Distributed Unique ID Generator: Essential for large distributed systems, assigning unique identifiers to events to distinguish them amidst multiple concurrent tasks.
- Distributed Search: Enables efficient searching of critical information on websites by leveraging search bars.
- Distributed Logging Services: Systems that trace sequences of events from end to end for comprehensive logging.
- Distributed Task Scheduler: Manages computational resources, including CPU, memory, and storage, in large distributed systems.