How Google Ads Supports 4.8 Billion Users with a SQL Database
Inside Google Spanner, the database that broke the rules of distributed systems
Search across 172 posts, 21 explainers, and 69 topics
Role of Queues in System Design
How message queues help build scalable, resilient systems that don't fall apart under pressure
How Amazon S3 Stores 100 Trillion Objects Without Losing One
Inside the distributed storage system that powers Netflix, Airbnb, and most of the internet
Two-Phase Commit: The Protocol That Keeps Distributed Transactions Honest
How databases across servers agree to commit or rollback without losing data
Cloudflare Outage December 2025: A Nil Value Exception That Lurked for Years
A 25-minute disruption affected 28% of HTTP traffic globally triggered by a security fix and exposed by a killswitch that had never been tested on 'execute' actions
Modular Monolith: The Architecture Most Teams Actually Need
Why microservices might be overkill and how to build systems that actually scale
The Complete Guide to Server-Sent Events (SSE)
The overlooked middle ground between polling and WebSockets
Long Polling Explained: Build Real-Time Apps Without WebSockets
The battle-tested technique that powers notifications when persistent connections fail
How Stock Brokers Push 1 Million Price Updates Per Second to Your Screen
The engineering behind real-time stock prices that move faster than you can blink
HOCON vs YAML vs TOML vs JSON: Complete Configuration Format Comparison
Why Docker uses YAML, Rust picks TOML, and Akka chose HOCON over JSON
Cloudflare Global Outage: How a Database Permission Change Broke the Internet
A 6-hour disruption took down ChatGPT, X, Spotify, Dropbox, and millions of sites worldwide - here's the technical breakdown and lessons for developers
Heartbeat: How Distributed Systems Know You're Still Alive
The simple signal that prevents your servers from becoming digital zombies
Your JSON is Costing You Thousands: Why TOON Might Save Your Budget
How a simple format change can reduce LLM API costs by 40-50%
Stop Blocking Your Paying Customers: Build a Smart Rate Limiter
How to protect your API without blocking legitimate users
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