AlgoFoxGet AlgoFox App

CoursesSystem Design Foundations

Frame and Size

Turn a one-line ask into requirements you can design against, the targets that decide the shape, and the traffic and storage numbers that say what fits on one machine and what does not.

Lessons
6
Exercises
35
Minutes
37

Start What the System Must Do

  1. 1

    What the System Must Do

    After this lesson you can turn a one-line ask into a short list of functional requirements, mark what is out of scope, and ask the one question whose answer changes the design.

    Fill blankMultiple choiceTap
    5 exercises
    5 min
  2. 2

    Nines and Percentiles

    After this lesson you can read an availability target as minutes of downtime, read a latency target as a percentile rather than an average, and say which target changes the design.

    Fill blankMultiple choiceShort answer
    5 exercises
    5 min
  3. 3

    Requests per Second

    After this lesson you can turn users and actions into requests per second, keep reads apart from writes, and add the peak factor before you size anything.

    Multiple choiceShort answerTrace
    5 exercises
    6 min
  4. 4

    Bytes per Day, Years of Disk

    After this lesson you can size one row, multiply it out over retention, turn requests into bandwidth, and say which of the three numbers decides whether one machine is enough.

    Multiple choiceShort answerTap
    5 exercises
    6 min
  5. 5

    Checkpoint: Frame and SizeCheckpoint

    Requirements, targets and estimates for a system you have not seen before.

    Fill blankMultiple choiceShort answerTap
    7 exercises
    6 min
  6. 6

    Boss: The Link ShortenerBoss

    One design carried from the ask to the incident: requirements, an estimate, a code length, a topology, a campaign spike, a cache that restarted, the revised path, and the tradeoff you have to defend.

    Code orderMultiple choiceShort answerTapTrace
    8 exercises
    9 min