The Cypher Hub | The Cypher Hub

01

Distributed Locking: Preventing Race Conditions with Redlock

When multiple services try to write to the same resource. How to implement distributed mutual exclusion using Redis and Redlock.

Feb 20•5 min read•System Design

02

Real-Time Fraud Detection: Architecture for Fintech Security

Catching bad guys in under 300ms. Using stream processing and ML models to flag suspicious transactions instantly.

Feb 16•5 min read•System Design

03

Full-Text Search: Scalable Engines with Elasticsearch

How do you search through billions of logs instantly? Understanding Inverted Indices, Tokenization, and TF-IDF scoring.

Feb 13•5 min read•System Design

04

Netflix Open Connect: Building a Custom CDN for Speed

Why Netflix built its own hardware. Learn about Open Connect, edge computing, and optimizing video delivery for ISPs.

Feb 6•7 min read•System Design

05

TikTok Algorithm: Engineering a Viral Recommendation Engine

Deconstructing the "For You" page. Graph databases, collaborative filtering, and the architecture of addiction.

Feb 9•6 min read•System Design

06

Spotify Engineering: Streaming Audio to Millions Globally

How Spotify delivers instant playback. A look at P2P networks, caching strategies, and their sophisticated event delivery system.

Feb 2•6 min read•System Design

07

Push Notifications: Inside Airbnb’s Notification Engine

Sending one notification is easy. Sending one million in a minute requires queues, workers, and smart rate limiting.

Jan 30•6 min read•System Design

08

Zoom Architecture: Low-Latency Audio & Video at Scale

How does video conferencing work? Explore WebRTC, UDP vs TCP, and how jitter buffers keep your calls smooth.

Jan 26•7 min read•System Design

09

WhatsApp Engineering: How End-to-End Encryption Works

Understand the Signal Protocol, the Double Ratchet algorithm, and how billions of messages are secured instantly.

Jan 23•9 min read•System Design

10

Database Sharding: Scaling Instagram's Postgres DB

When vertical scaling hits a wall. A deep dive into horizontal partitioning, ID generation (Snowflake), and routing queries efficiently.

Jan 19•9 min read•System Design

11

API Gateway Patterns: The Microservices Front Door

Don't expose your services directly. Explore how API Gateways handle authentication, rate limiting, SSL termination, and request routing.

Jan 16•9 min read•System Design

12

Consistent Hashing: How Discord Scales to Billions of Users

Why simple modulo hashing fails at scale. Learn how Consistent Hashing allows Discord to add or remove nodes without rebalancing the entire cluster.

Jan 13•9 min read•System Design

Distributed Locking: Preventing Race Conditions with Redlock

Featured Articles

Netflix Open Connect: Building a Custom CDN for Speed

TikTok Algorithm: Engineering a Viral Recommendation Engine

Spotify Engineering: Streaming Audio to Millions Globally

Curated Series

System Design Deconstructed

Latest Articles

Distributed Locking: Preventing Race Conditions with Redlock

Distributed Locking: Preventing Race Conditions with Redlock

Real-Time Fraud Detection: Architecture for Fintech Security

Full-Text Search: Scalable Engines with Elasticsearch

Netflix Open Connect: Building a Custom CDN for Speed

TikTok Algorithm: Engineering a Viral Recommendation Engine

Spotify Engineering: Streaming Audio to Millions Globally

Push Notifications: Inside Airbnb’s Notification Engine

Zoom Architecture: Low-Latency Audio & Video at Scale

WhatsApp Engineering: How End-to-End Encryption Works

Database Sharding: Scaling Instagram's Postgres DB

API Gateway Patterns: The Microservices Front Door

Consistent Hashing: How Discord Scales to Billions of Users

Distributed Locking: Preventing Race Conditions with Redlock

Real-Time Fraud Detection: Architecture for Fintech Security

Full-Text Search: Scalable Engines with Elasticsearch

Netflix Open Connect: Building a Custom CDN for Speed

TikTok Algorithm: Engineering a Viral Recommendation Engine

Spotify Engineering: Streaming Audio to Millions Globally

Push Notifications: Inside Airbnb’s Notification Engine

Zoom Architecture: Low-Latency Audio & Video at Scale

WhatsApp Engineering: How End-to-End Encryption Works

Database Sharding: Scaling Instagram's Postgres DB

API Gateway Patterns: The Microservices Front Door

Consistent Hashing: How Discord Scales to Billions of Users