Home>Courses>Distributed Systems: Building Software for the Real World

Distributed Systems: Building Software for the Real World

Explore architecting, designing, and building resilient distributed systems for real-world challenges. Gain insights into creating stability, designing for production, delivering systems, and solving systemic issues.

Beginner

189 Lessons

12h

Certificate of Completion

AI-POWERED

Explanations

AI-POWERED

Explanations

This course includes

89 Quizzes

20 Code Snippets

Course Overview

What You'll Learn

Course Content

Course Overview

In this course, you will examine ways to architect, design, and build software —particularly distributed systems—for the muck and mire of the real world. You will prepare for the armies of illogical users who do crazy, unpredictable things. Your software will be under attack from the moment you release it. It needs to stand up to the typhoon winds of flash mobs or the crushing pressure of a DDoS attack by poorly secured IoT toaster ovens. You’ll take a hard look at software that failed the test and find way...Show More

In this course, you will examine ways to architect, design, and build software —particularly distributed systems—for the muck an...Show More

TAKEAWAY SKILLS

Software Engineering

Distributed Systems

What You'll Learn

Understand system architecture and information architecture

Learn about development lifecycle and different architectures to build a software

Learn about stability anti-patterns, problems in network connection and their vulnerabilities

Learn service discovery systems, control plane, bounded/unbounded result sets and their effects

Understand system architecture and information architecture

Course Content

Living in Production

4 Lessons

Step through readiness for production, holistic design, and pragmatic architecture in software.

Introduction

Scope and Overall Development Lifecycle

Pragmatic Architecture

Quiz

The Exception That Grounded an Airline

9 Lessons

Solve challenges with a case study on resolving airline system outages and preventing failures.

Case Study: The Exception That Grounded an Airline

An Ounce of Prevention

Quiz

Stabilize Your System

7 Lessons

Break apart strategies to maintain stability, prevent failures, and ensure system longevity.

Real World Problems

Defining Stability

Expanding System Lifespan

Failure Modes

Stopping Crack Propagation

Chain Of Failure

Quiz

Stability Antipatterns

13 Lessons

Break down complex ideas on stability antipatterns in distributed systems and mitigation strategies.

Antipatterns

Integration points

Socket Based Protocols

Network Connection

The 5 AM Problem

TCP With Firewall

Socket Connection Failure

HTTP Protocols

Vendor API Libraries

Countering Integration Point Problems

Chain Reactions

Avoid Failures

Quiz

Failures And Blockages

19 Lessons

Take a closer look at handling failures and blockages in distributed systems to ensure resilience.

Deadlock And Bad Users

Unbalanced Capacities

Drive Out Through Testing

Dogpile

Quiz

Force Multiplier

6 Lessons

Investigate safeguards and strategies to prevent failures in automated distributed systems.

Outage Amplification

Controls and Safeguards

Slow Responses

Unbounded Result Sets

Reasons for unbound result set

Quiz

Stability Patterns

17 Lessons

Master the steps to ensuring system stability through timeouts, circuit breakers, bulkheads, and effective resource management.

Timeouts

Timeouts Side Effects And Latency problems

More About Test Harness and Failure Modes

Decoupling Middleware

Launching An Online Store

8 Lessons

Address challenges of online store launch, load testing, traffic management, and server diagnostics during peak retail events.

Calendars

My First Holiday Load Test

Taking the Pulse

Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday

Foundations

9 Lessons

Walk through the fundamentals of distributed systems, including virtualization, containers, and cloud environments.

Physical Fundamentals

NICs and Names

Programming for Multiple Networks

Virtual Machines in the Data Center

Containers in the Data Center

The 12-Factor App

Virtual Machines in the Cloud

Containers in the Cloud

Quiz

10.

Processes on Machines

9 Lessons

Examine the essentials of deploying, managing, and monitoring distributed system processes on machines.

Deployment and Runtime View

Code

Configuration

Transparency

Designing for Transparency

Enabling Technologies and Logging

Human Readability of Log Files and Voodoo Operations

Instance Metrics and Health Checks

Quiz

11.

Interconnect

12 Lessons

Grasp the fundamentals of interconnect layers, DNS, load balancing, demand control, and service discovery.

Interconnect Layer

DNS

Global Server Load Balancing with DNS

Availability Of DNS And Load Balancing

Software and Hardware Load Balancing

Migratory Virtual IP Addresses

Quiz

12.

Control Plane

14 Lessons

Take a closer look at the control plane's role in managing and automating distributed systems.

Mechanical Advantage

System Failure, Not Human Error

Automation Goes Really Fast

Platform and Ecosystem

Development Is Production

System-Wide Transparency

Economic Value

The Risk of Fragmentation and Logs/Stats

What to Expose

Configuration Services

Provisioning and Deployment Services

Command and Control

The Platform Players

Quiz

13.

Security

11 Lessons

Implement measures to enhance security in distributed systems, mitigating breaches and vulnerabilities effectively.

Security Breaches

Broken Authentication and Session Management

Cross-Site Scripting

Broken Access Control

Security Misconfiguration

Sensitive Data Exposure

Cross-Site Request Forgery

The Principle of Least Privilege

Configured Passwords

Waiting for Godot

Quiz

14.

Design for Deployment

10 Lessons

Master deployment strategies, minimize downtime, ensure system stability, and enhance user experience.

Planned Downtime

Automated Deployments

Continuous Deployment

Phases of Deployment

Relational Database Schemata

Schemaless Databases

Web Assets

Rollout

Cleanup and Deploy Like the Pros

Quiz

15.

Handling Versions

5 Lessons

Try out strategies for handling versions and maintaining API compatibility in distributed systems.

Non-breaking API changes

Gap Between Documentation and Actual Implementation

Breaking API Changes

Handle Others’ Versions

Quiz

16.

Case Study: Trampled by Your Own Customers

6 Lessons

Walk through the challenges and resolutions in launching and stabilizing a new online system.

17.

Adaptation

8 Lessons

Work your way through adapting software for changes, efficient processes, effective teams, and service autonomy.

Convex Returns

Process and Organization

18.

System Architecture

7 Lessons

Grasp the fundamentals of resilient, adaptable system architecture principles and modularity.

Evolutionary Architecture

19.

Information Architecture

6 Lessons

Deepen your knowledge of flexible information architecture, focusing on databases, events, services, URLs, and data plurality.

Databases

Messages, Events, and Commands

Services Control Their Identifiers

URL Dualism

Embrace Plurality

Quiz

20.

Chaos Engineering

8 Lessons

Follow the process of using chaos engineering to enhance resilience in distributed systems.

Production Environment Problems

Antecedents of Chaos Engineering

The Simian Army

Adopting Your Own Monkey

21.

Bibliography

1 Lessons

Build on foundational literature in databases, software architecture, Agile development, and system design.

References

Course Author

The Pragmatic Programmers

Trusted by 2.5 million developers working at companies

"These are high-quality courses. Trust me. I own around 10 and the price is worth it for the content quality. EducativeInc came at the right time in my career. I'm understanding topics better than with any book or online video tutorial I've done. Truly made for developers. Thanks"

Anthony Walker

@_webarchitect_

"Just finished my first full #ML course: Machine learning for Software Engineers from Educative, Inc. ... Highly recommend!"

Evan Dunbar

ML Engineer

"You guys are the gold standard of crash-courses... Narrow enough that it doesn't need years of study or a full blown book to get the gist, but broad enough that an afternoon of Googling doesn't cut it."

Carlos Matias La Borde

Software Developer

"I spend my days and nights on Educative. It is indispensable. It is such a unique and reader-friendly site"

Souvik Kundu

Front-end Developer

"Your courses are simply awesome, the depth they go into and the breadth of coverage is so good that I don't have to refer to 10 different websites looking for interview topics and content."

Vinay Krishnaiah

Software Developer

"I've tried probably 5-7 different sites and Educative is easily the best. It perfectly blends explanation with interactivity"

Eric Downs

Musician/Entrepeneur

Hands-on Learning Powered by AI

See how Educative uses AI to make your learning more immersive than ever before.

Instant Code Feedback

Evaluate and debug your code with the click of a button. Get real-time feedback on test cases, including time and space complexity of your solutions.

AI-Powered Mock Interviews

Put your skills to the test in a simulated interview setting. Receive personalized feedback based on your performance. Available in Premium & Premium Plus plans.

Adaptive Learning

At various checkpoints throughout Educative courses, you will be prompted to take a quick assessment. Receive a condensed curriculum tailored to your strengths and skill gaps.

Explain with AI

Select any text within any Educative course, and get an instant explanation — without ever leaving your browser.

AI Code Mentor

AI Code Mentor helps you quickly identify errors in your code, learn from your mistakes, and nudge you in the right direction — just like a 1:1 tutor!

Free Resources

FOR TEAMS

Interested in this course for your business or team?

Unlock this course (and 1,000+ more) for your entire org with DevPath