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Interview Prep > System Design > Flashcards

System Design Flashcards

1
Q

What is Scalability?

A

The capability of a system to grow and manage increased demand.

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2
Q

Horizontal vs. Vertical Scaling

A

Horizontal scaling means that you scale by adding more servers into your pool of resources.

Vertical scaling means you add more power (CPU, RAM, storage, etc) to an existing server

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3
Q

What is Reliability?

A

The probability a system will fail in a given period

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4
Q

What is Availability?

A

It is a simple measure of the percentage of time that a system, service, or a machine remains operational under normal conditions.

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5
Q

Standard measures of efficiency?

A

Latency and Bandwidth

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6
Q

What is Latency?

A

The delay to obtain the first item

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7
Q

What is Bandwidth?

A

The number of items delivered in a given time unit (e.g., a second)

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8
Q

What is Serviceability/Manageability?

A

Serviceability or manageability is the simplicity and speed with which a system can be repaired or maintained

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9
Q

What is a Load Balancer?

A

Helps spread traffic across a cluster of servers to improve responsiveness and availability of applications

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10
Q

Benefits of Load Balancing

A
  • Users experience faster service, single servers have to finish their previous task
  • Fewer failed or stressed components, instead of single device performing a lot of work, several devices perform a little work
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10
Q

Benefits of Load Balancing

A
  • Users experience faster service, single servers have to finish their previous task
  • Fewer failed or stressed components, instead of single device performing a lot of work, several devices perform a little work
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11
Q

How does the load balancer choose the backend server?

A
  1. Ensures that the server they choose is actually responding appropriately to requests
  2. Use a pre-configured algorithm to select one from the set of healthy servers
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12
Q

What is a health check for?

A

Load balancers should only forward traffic to “healthy” backend servers

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13
Q

What is data partitioning?

A

A technique used to break a big database into smaller parts

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14
Q

Motivation for data partitioning?

A

After a certain scale point, it is cheaper and more feasible to scale horizontally by adding more machines than to grow it vertically

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15
Q

What are Indexes?

A

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.

16
Q

What are Indexes?

A

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.

17
Q

What is a proxy server?

A

Essentially, a proxy server is a piece of software or hardware that facilitates the request for resources from other servers on behalf of clients.

18
Q

What is Redundancy?

A

Redundancy is the duplication of critical components or functions of a system with the intention of increasing the reliability of the system, usually in the form of a backup or fail-safe

19
Q

SQL vs NoSQL: Storage

A

SQL: SQL stores data in tables where each row represents an entity and each column represents a data point about that entity

NoSQL: NoSQL databases have different data storage models. The main ones are key-value, document, graph, and columnar

20
Q

SQL vs NoSQL: Schema

A

SQL: Each record conforms to a fixed schema

NoSQL: Schemas are dynamic

21
Q

SQL vs NoSQL: Querying

A

SQL: Uses SQL for manipulating data

NoSQL: Queries are focused on a collection of documents

22
Q

SQL vs NoSQL: Scalability

A

SQL: SQL databases are vertically scalable.

NoSQL: NoSQL databases are horizontally scalable

23
Q

Reasons to use SQL databases

A
  • Your data is structured and unchanging
  • If you business is not experiencing massive growth that would require more servers
24
Q

Reasons to use NoSQL databases

A
  • Storing large volumes of data that often have little to no structure
  • Rapid development, it doesn’t need to be prepped ahead of time
25
Q

What is ingress bandwidth?

A

Download speed

26
Q

What is egress bandiwdth?

A

Upload speed

Interview Prep (6 decks)

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