5 System Design fundamentals for technical product managers

2. Key-value storage#

A key-value store is a software storage system that builds on an associative array data model such as a hash table or dictionary to assign every key with a unique value in a collection. Values can be anything from unique ids, blobs, or server names.

It can be challenging to scale with traditional storage systems in distributed environments while still maintaining strong and consistent availability. Several top tech companies, including Facebook, Netflix, and Amazon, rely more on primary-key access data stores than traditional online transaction processing (OLTP) databases. By definition, OLTP is rapid real-time execution of huge database transactions over the internet.

Advantages of key-value storage#

• Scalability: They can continuously process increasingly large amounts of data without a significant drop in performance.
• Speed: Simple retrieval and usage commands like get, put, and delete ensure efficiency.
• Flexibility: Scaling any large business model is easier because of the combined scalability and speed key-value stores offer.

Why should a TPM know about key-value storage?#

When designing a system as a TPM, you should consider when and where you need to use a key-value store and why it may be the best choice at that given time. This model is beneficial for storing customer personalization data because of the scalability, speed, and flexibility that comes with it.

For instance, you can increase processing performance on your systems because you will be working with datasets on multiple computers with more memory and also increase fault tolerance. Companies like Linkedin, Amazon, and MongoDB have used key-value stores to scale significantly over the last couple of years.

3. Rate limiters#

A rate limiter ensures that a service responds only to a set number of requests. Anything beyond the predefined limits is throttled. For example, if an API for a service has been configured to handle only 200 requests per minute, any requests over that will be blocked.

Advantages of rate limiters#

• Cost efficiency: They help control operational costs, for instance, by preventing operational experiments from exceeding the set quota of server requests.
• Averting resource deprivation: Several denial of service (DoS) attacks that happen due to software configuration errors are prevented with rate limiting.
• Distributing data flow: Like load balancers, rate limiters ensure that systems are not overburdened with a large amount of data and help evenly spread the load among different servers when required.

Why should a TPM know about rate limiters?#

In your role as a TPM, you want to ensure that your servers are running optimally and databases are not being compromised by slow performance. This is where an appropriate rate limiting algorithm can be applied.

Companies like Lyft make use of rate limiters to run their processes efficiently.

4. Content delivery networks (CDNs)#

Content delivery networks are geographically distributed servers that work together to ensure quick and efficient content delivery over the internet. CDNs use caching as a mechanism to speed up the delivery of content across the web.

Content serviced by CDNs can be of several types, including website data, social media content, downloadable media, and so on.

Several organizations use CDNs to accelerate the delivery of content via the internet. A bank, for instance, might use a CDN to transfer sensitive data securely.

Advantages of CDNs#

• Improving efficiency: CDNs enhance web page load times while simultaneously cutting down bounce rates. This keeps a user on the page and prevents them from abandoning it.
• Enhancing security: By mitigating distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, CDNs play a massive role in boosting security.
• Cutting down on bandwidth costs: Because CDNs primarily rely on caching and other optimizations, they can significantly reduce server bandwidth, keeping hosting costs down for website administrators and owners.

Why should a TPM know about CDNs?#

If your organization is content-heavy, you, as a TPM, may find a CDN helpful to employ in some instances. You will be able to reduce data load times and latency, reduce redundancy, boost security and reduce bandwidth expenses hence saving time and costs for the organization.

5. Databases#

Traditional file systems come with many disadvantages, so databases are often preferred. A database is a collection of data organized in a way that is easily accessible, maintainable, manageable, and structured so that it can be updated and processed efficiently.

Databases come in two main types:

• Relational databases are collections of datasets organized in multiple tables, columns, and records. Relational databases communicate with each other via database tables. Structured query language (SQL) is used to manipulate and retrieve information from these databases with commands like insert, delete, update, and retrieve.

• Non-relational databases (NoSQL) typically store unstructured data in a different format from relational databases. NoSQL databases have several types, including graph, key-value, document, and wide-column.

Advantages of databases#

• Data consistency: Databases will ensure that data redundancy is eliminated and changes made are reflected in the database immediately hence no inconsistency in data.
• Data integrity: By ensuring all users are presented with correct and accurate information, data integrity is maintained.
• Data security: Several security features including password and user authentication help maintain security of data in databases.

Why should a TPM know about databases?#

Every organization works with databases in this digital era to scale their business and improve workflows and efficiency. Your role as a TPM may often require you to wear the hat of a data product manager too. Here, you may be required to oversee the entire lifecycle of how data is distributed and used within an organization. This is where a strong background in data science and working with databases will help you shine.

Databases have several advantages depending on the type you choose, including data integrity, data consistency, data security, data persistence, and ease of access, among others.

You can learn more about databases as a building block in System Design from this database design tutorial.

Where to go from here on System Design#

Did you have fun learning about the fundamentals of System Design? Whether you are just thinking about starting a career in technical product management or are already in the field, we hope this article helped you navigate the complexities of System Design as you build scalable software products. But we have just scratched the surface of this topic. More System Design fundamentals not discussed in this article but absolutely necessary for you as a TPM to learn and master include:

• Domain Name Systems (DNS)
• Sequencers
• Distributed Caching
• Publish-Subscribe Systems
• Sharded Counters
• Distributed Messaging Queues
• Distributed Task Scheduling
• Distributed Logging

To help you master System Design fundamentals in-depth with building blocks, don’t forget to check out Educative’s fully hands-on Grokking Modern System Design course, which has a comprehensive overview of System Design.

Happy learning!

Continue learning about System Design#

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• How machine learning gives you an edge in System Design