System Design Deep Dive Learning Series (Architecture Masterclass)

A collection of architecture-focused deep dives designed to take you from beginner to production-level understanding of modern distributed systems. Each topic is a standalone learning track covering theory, internals, production architecture, implementation, and real-world use cases.

Each learning track follows the same comprehensive structure:

• Learning Objectives
• Prerequisites
• Theory
• Internal Working
• Step-by-Step Execution
• Message Flow
• Architecture Deep Dive
• Mermaid Diagrams
• ASCII Diagrams
• Flowcharts
• Algorithms
• Code Examples (Java, Go, Python, Node.js)
• Kubernetes Examples
• Docker Examples
• Cloud Examples (AWS, Azure, GCP)
• Production Case Studies
• Performance Optimization
• Security Notes
• Common Mistakes
• Troubleshooting
• Best Practices
• Hands-on Labs
• Exercises
• Quiz
• Interview Questions
• Cheat Sheet
• Summary
• References
• Research Papers
• Further Reading

---

1. API Design Best Practices Mastery

Design production-grade APIs used by companies like Google, Stripe, GitHub, AWS, and Netflix.

Topics

• API Fundamentals
• REST Architecture
• Richardson Maturity Model
• HTTP Deep Dive
• URI Design
• Resource Modeling
• Request Design
• Response Design
• Versioning
• Pagination
• Filtering
• Sorting
• Searching
• Partial Updates
• Batch APIs
• Long Running APIs
• Async APIs
• Webhooks
• GraphQL
• gRPC
• Error Handling
• Authentication
• Authorization
• OAuth2
• OpenID Connect
• JWT
• API Gateway
• Rate Limiting
• Caching
• OpenAPI
• Swagger
• Contract Testing
• API Lifecycle
• API Governance
• Production API Architecture

---

2. Modular Monolith Architecture Mastery

Build enterprise applications without microservice complexity.

Topics

• Monolith vs Modular Monolith
• Domain Driven Design
• Bounded Context
• Module Boundaries
• Layered Architecture
• Clean Architecture
• Hexagonal Architecture
• Onion Architecture
• Vertical Slice Architecture
• CQRS
• Events
• Shared Kernel
• Module Communication
• Dependency Rules
• Repository Pattern
• Unit of Work
• Module Testing
• Database Strategies
• Scaling
• Migration to Microservices
• Production Architecture

---

3. Apache Kafka Deep Dive

Everything about Kafka Internals.

Topics

• Event Streaming
• Broker Architecture
• Topics
• Partitions
• Leaders
• Followers
• ISR
• Producers
• Consumers
• Consumer Groups
• Offset Management
• Ordering Guarantees
• Replication
• Exactly Once
• Transactions
• Log Compaction
• Retention Policies
• Rebalancing
• KRaft
• Schema Registry
• Kafka Connect
• Kafka Streams
• MirrorMaker
• Multi Cluster Kafka
• Performance Tuning
• Production Architecture

---

4. Saga Pattern Mastery

Distributed transaction management.

Topics

• Why Distributed Transactions Fail
• ACID
• BASE
• CAP
• Saga Pattern
• Choreography
• Orchestration
• Compensation
• Retry
• Rollback
• Timeouts
• Dead Letter Queue
• Event Store
• Outbox Pattern
• Kafka Integration
• RabbitMQ Integration
• Monitoring
• Failure Recovery
• Production Examples

---

5. Idempotency Mastery

Build retry-safe distributed systems.

Topics

• Idempotency Basics
• Safe vs Unsafe Operations
• HTTP Idempotency
• PUT vs POST
• Idempotency Keys
• Database Strategies
• Redis Strategies
• Duplicate Detection
• Distributed Locks
• Retry Handling
• Payment APIs
• Event Processing
• Kafka Idempotency
• Race Conditions
• Production Patterns

---

6. Docker Internals Mastery

Understand how Docker actually works.

Topics

• Container History
• OCI Specification
• Docker Architecture
• Docker Daemon
• Docker CLI
• Images
• Layers
• OverlayFS
• Storage Drivers
• Union File Systems
• Docker Build
• BuildKit
• Multi Stage Build
• Namespaces
• cgroups
• seccomp
• AppArmor
• SELinux
• Networking
• Volumes
• Registry
• Image Distribution
• Container Runtime
• containerd
• runc
• CRI
• Performance
• Security
• Kubernetes Integration

---

7. Bloom Filter Mastery

Probabilistic data structures for high-performance systems.

Topics

• Why Bloom Filters
• Probability
• False Positives
• No False Negatives
• Bit Arrays
• Hash Functions
• Insert Algorithm
• Lookup Algorithm
• Mathematical Analysis
• Counting Bloom Filter
• Scalable Bloom Filter
• Cuckoo Filter
• Redis Bloom
• Cassandra
• Bigtable
• RocksDB
• CDN Usage
• Cache Optimization
• Database Optimization

---

8. Service Discovery Mastery

How distributed services locate each other.

Topics

• Static Discovery
• Dynamic Discovery
• DNS Discovery
• Client Side Discovery
• Server Side Discovery
• Registry Pattern
• Consul
• etcd
• ZooKeeper
• Eureka
• Kubernetes DNS
• Service Mesh
• Envoy
• Istio
• Linkerd
• Health Checks
• Heartbeats
• Registration
• Deregistration
• Production Patterns

---

9. Capacity Planning Mastery

Design systems that scale before they fail.

Topics

• Requirement Analysis
• Capacity Estimation
• Traffic Estimation
• Requests Per Second
• QPS
• TPS
• DAU
• MAU
• Read Write Ratio
• Storage Growth
• CPU Planning
• Memory Planning
• Network Planning
• Disk Planning
• Cost Estimation
• Horizontal Scaling
• Vertical Scaling
• Benchmarking
• Load Testing
• Stress Testing
• Capacity Reports

---

10. Consistent Hashing Mastery

The backbone of distributed storage systems.

Topics

• Traditional Hashing
• Hash Ring
• Virtual Nodes
• Replication
• Data Distribution
• Load Balancing
• Node Join
• Node Leave
• Rebalancing
• Cassandra
• DynamoDB
• Redis Cluster
• Ceph
• Kafka
• Kubernetes
• Production Examples

---

11. RPC Mastery

How remote procedure calls work.

Topics

• RPC Fundamentals
• Stub Generation
• Serialization
• Deserialization
• Protobuf
• Avro
• Thrift
• HTTP RPC
• gRPC
• JSON RPC
• XML RPC
• Connection Pooling
• Streaming RPC
• Unary RPC
• Bidirectional Streaming
• Authentication
• Retry
• Timeout
• Load Balancing
• Service Discovery
• Production Architecture

---

12. Actor Model Mastery

Scalable concurrent programming.

Topics

• Actors
• Mailboxes
• Messages
• Actor Lifecycle
• Actor Supervision
• Hierarchies
• Scheduling
• Fault Tolerance
• Akka
• Erlang OTP
• Orleans
• Distributed Actors
• Cluster Sharding
• Persistence
• Event Sourcing
• CQRS
• Production Systems

---

13. Redis Mastery (Use Cases & Internals)

Much more than caching.

Topics

• Redis Architecture
• Memory Model
• Data Structures
• Strings
• Hashes
• Lists
• Sets
• Sorted Sets
• Streams
• Pub/Sub
• Transactions
• Lua Scripts
• Persistence
• AOF
• RDB
• Replication
• Sentinel
• Redis Cluster
• Distributed Locks
• Rate Limiting
• Session Store
• Leaderboards
• Message Queues
• Geospatial Indexing
• Bloom Filters
• RedisJSON
• RedisSearch
• Performance Tuning

---

14. JWT (JSON Web Token) Mastery

Everything about JWT.

Topics

• Authentication vs Authorization
• Session vs JWT
• JWT Structure
• Header
• Payload
• Signature
• Base64URL
• HMAC
• RSA
• ECDSA
• Signing
• Verification
• Access Token
• Refresh Token
• Claims
• Registered Claims
• Private Claims
• Public Claims
• Token Expiration
• Token Rotation
• Revocation
• Blacklisting
• OAuth2 Integration
• OpenID Connect
• Security Best Practices
• Common Vulnerabilities
• Production Architecture

---

Future Deep-Dive Topics

• Circuit Breaker Pattern
• CQRS Deep Dive
• Event Sourcing
• Outbox Pattern
• Inbox Pattern
• Distributed Locking
• Distributed Transactions
• Leader Election
• Rate Limiting Algorithms
• API Gateway Internals
• Reverse Proxy Internals
• Load Balancer Internals
• DNS Internals
• CDN Internals
• TLS/SSL Internals
• OAuth2 Deep Dive
• OpenID Connect Deep Dive
• Service Mesh Deep Dive
• Envoy Proxy Deep Dive
• Kubernetes Scheduler Internals
• etcd Deep Dive
• Raft Algorithm Deep Dive
• Paxos Deep Dive
• CRDT Mastery
• Gossip Protocol Deep Dive
• Vector Clocks
• Lamport Clocks
• Chandy-Lamport Snapshot Algorithm
• Distributed Lock Managers
• Database Index Internals
• B+ Tree Deep Dive
• LSM Tree Deep Dive
• MVCC Deep Dive
• WAL (Write-Ahead Logging)
• Query Optimizer Internals
• Filesystem Internals
• Linux Kernel Networking
• eBPF Deep Dive
• io_uring Deep Dive
• JVM Internals
• Python Runtime Internals
• Go Runtime Internals
• Garbage Collection Algorithms
• Memory Allocators
• Compiler Design
• Operating System Internals