System Design Tutorial
Last Updated :
02 Jul, 2025
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System Design is the process of designing the architecture, components, and interfaces for a system so that it meets the end-user requirements. This specifically designed System Design tutorial will help you to learn and master System Design concepts in the most efficient way, from the basics to the advanced level.
Why Learn System Design?
System design is important for anyone who wants to build a robust, scalable, and efficient software application. Whether you are building a small-scale application or a large one, understanding system design allows you to architect solutions that can handle real-world complexities.
- Scalability and Reliability: System design ensures systems can grow and handle increased demand without failure.
- Efficient Resource Management: It helps in optimizing resource allocation, ensuring fast and responsive applications.
- Adaptability: System design enables the creation of systems that can evolve with changing business needs, reducing long-term costs.
- Architectural Understanding: Learning different system architectures (e.g., microservices, monolithic) helps in building applications suited to various needs.
- Interview Preparation: Mastering system design is key to excelling in system design interviews, commonly asked in tech company hiring processes.
Introduction to System Design
Basics of System Design
- What is the Requirements Gathering Process in System Design?
- Functional vs Non-Functional Requirements
- Stakeholder Analysis
- System Design Strategies
- Components of System Design
- System Design Life Cycle | SDLC (Design)
Scalability in System Design
- Scalability and How to Achieve it?
- Horizontal and Vertical Scaling
- Which Scalability approach is right for our Application?
- Primary Bottlenecks that Hurt the Scalability of an Application
System Architectural Styles
- Monolithic Architecture
- Microservices Architecture
- Monolithic vs Microservices Architecture
- Event-Driven Architecture
- Serverless Architecture
- Stateful vs. Stateless Architecture
- Layered Architecture
- Peer-To-Peer Architecture
High-Level Design(HLD) and Core Components
- What is High Level Design?
- Availability in System Design
- How to achieve High Availability?
- Consistency in System Design
- Reliability in System Design
- Fault Tolerance in System Design
- Maintainability
- CAP Theorem
- Concurrency and Parallelism
- Load Balancer
- Load Balancing Algorithms
- Consistent Hashing
- Consistency pattern
- Domain Name System
- DNS Caching
- Time to Live(TTL)
- Content Delivery Network(CDN)
- Latency and Throughput
- Caching in System Design
- What is API Gateway
- Message Queues
- Rate Limiting
- Rate Limiting Algorithm
- Communication Protocols
- Network Protocols and Proxies
- Unified Modeling Language (UML)
- Websockets
Core Concepts in System Design
- Forward Proxy vs Reverse Proxy
- Performance Optimization Techniques for System Design
- Sequence and Parallel Cloud Computing
- Consensus Algorithms in Distributed System
- Distributed Tracing
- Software Cost Estimation
Databases in Designing Systems
- Which Database to Choose while designing a system - SQL or NoSQL
- File and Database Storage Systems
- Database Replication in System Design
- Database Sharding
- Block, Object, and File Storage
- Normalization Process in DBMS
- Denormalization in Databases
- Intro to Redis
Low Level Design(LLD)
- What is Low Level Design or LLD
- Object-Oriented Programing(OOP) Concepts
- Data Structures and Algorithms for System Design
- Object-Oriented Analysis and Design
- Difference between Authentication and Authorization
- Design Patterns
- Unit Testing
- Integration Testing
- CI/CD Pipeline
- Introduction to Modularity and Interfaces
- Essential Security Measures in System Design
Security Measures
- Authentication and Authorization
- Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS)
- Secure Communication in Distributed System
- Secure Software Developement Life Cycle (SSDLC)
- Data Backup and Disaster Recovery
Interview Questions & Answers of System Design
- URL Shortening Service
- Design Dropbox
- Design Twitter
- System Design Netflix – Complete Architecture
- System Design of Uber App – Uber System Architecture
- Design BookMyShow
- Designing Facebook Messenger
- Designing Whatsapp Messenger
- Designing Instagram
- Designing Airbnb
- System Designing of Airline Management System
Tips for System Design interview
- How to Crack System Design Round in Interviews?
- 5 Tips to Crack Low-Level System Design Interviews
- 5 Common System Design Concepts for Interview Preparation
- 6 Steps To Approach Object-Oriented Design Questions in Interview

Advantages of System Design
Below are the advantages of System Design:
- In Good system design, it is easy to see how all parts of the system connects, interact and function together.
- It helps teams plan resources, time, and costs more effectively and reduces any surprises during development.
- An efficient system is easy to maintain and update, which saves time and effort in the long run.
- It allows the system to grow smoothly. You can add new features or handle more users without major changes.
- Good design can enhance the system’s performance, making it faster and more efficient.
Disadvantages of System Design
Below are the disadvantages of System Design:
- The process of system design can be time-consuming, especially for large and complex systems.
- System design can be expensive, especially if it involves significant research, prototyping, and testing.
- System design requires a significant amount of technical expertise, including knowledge of hardware, software, databases, and data structures.
- Once a system design is complete, it can be difficult to make changes to the design, especially if the design has already been implemented and deployed.
Reference books
Below are some good reference book to learn system design:
- "Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software" by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides
- "The Design of Everyday Things" by Don Norman
- "Systems Analysis and Design" by Alan Dennis and Barbara Haley Wixom
- "Clean Architecture: A Craftsman's Guide to Software Structure and Design" by Robert C. Martin
- "Software Architecture in Practice" by Len Bass, Paul Clements, and Rick Kazman