Is this a video course?

No. This is an interactive, slide-based learning platform. Each lesson has rich text, animated diagrams, live code editors, and quizzes. You learn by reading, interacting, and doing, not by watching videos passively.

How long do I have access?

Forever. Both pricing tiers are one-time payments with lifetime access. This includes all current 766 lessons and any future content we add.

What level of experience do I need?

None. We start from absolute basics like 'What is latency?' and build up to distributed consensus protocols. The Foundation level assumes zero prior knowledge of system design.

How much does the system design course cost?

7.99 US dollars for lifetime access globally, or 499 Indian rupees for lifetime access in India. One-time payment, no subscription, no hidden fees. 11 lessons are free with no signup required.

What technologies are covered?

Everything from DNS and load balancers to Kubernetes, Kafka, distributed databases, consensus protocols, stream processing, security architecture, and observability. We cover principles and real-world implementations used at Netflix, Google, Amazon, Uber, Stripe, and more.

Is this useful for system design interview preparation?

Yes. The lessons are structured around the exact topics asked in system design interviews at FAANG and top-tier companies. Interactive diagrams help you practice whiteboard-style explanations. Covers everything from URL shortener design to distributed payment systems.

How is this different from ByteByteGo or Educative?

766 interactive lessons (4x more than most competitors), 16 different diagram types that build step by step, real production examples from Netflix, Google, Amazon, Uber, and Stripe, and lifetime access for a one-time payment of $7.99 instead of annual subscriptions costing 100 to 200 dollars per year.

A user in Sydney requests an image that's never been requested from the Sydney edge before. What happens?

The CDN edge in Sydney fetches the image from the origin server, caches it, and serves it to the user, On a cache miss, the edge server fetches content from the origin, caches it locally, and serves the response. The first request is slower (origin fetch), but all subsequent requests from Sydney users get the cached copy in ~5ms. This is called 'pull-based' caching, content is cached on demand, not pre-distributed.

You deploy new CSS but users still see the old styles. Your CDN has a 1-year cache TTL. What's the best fix going forward?

Use cache-busting URLs with content hashes, styles.a3f2b1.css, so new deploys create new URLs, Cache-busting with content hashes is the gold standard. When the CSS changes, the hash changes, so the URL changes. The CDN treats it as completely new content, no purge needed. The old CSS stays cached (harmless, no page references it), and the new CSS gets cached on first request. Modern build tools like webpack and Vite do this automatically.

Your CDN cache hit ratio is 45%. You're effectively sending more than half your traffic to the origin. What's the most likely cause?

Most responses have aggressive no-cache headers or short TTLs, preventing effective caching, A 45% hit ratio almost always means your cache headers are too restrictive. Common culprits: Cache-Control: no-cache on static assets, very short TTLs, dynamic Set-Cookie headers on every response (which prevent caching), or the Vary header being too broad. Audit your response headers and you'll likely find quick wins.

Why is Fastly's sub-second cache purge speed a significant advantage for media companies?

Media content changes frequently, news articles update, prices change, and stale content is a major problem, News organizations publish breaking stories and corrections constantly. An incorrect headline cached for 60 seconds is seen by millions of readers. Fastly's 150ms global purge means corrections propagate almost instantly. For media, e-commerce (price changes), and financial services (rate updates), fast purge isn't a nice-to-have, it's a requirement.

Content Delivery Network (CDN)

Name: System Design Masterclass
Availability: InStock

in Load Balancing Proxies

This lesson is part of the full System Design Masterclass. Unlock it along with 765 other lessons for a one-time payment.

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Foundation lessons free, try before you buy

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India

₹999₹499/lifetime

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Foundation lessons free, try before you buy

Founders price, locked for the first 10,000 customers

“The interactive diagrams alone are worth way more than the price.”

Anish K., Senior Engineer at a Bengaluru startup

All 766 interactive lessons

Step-by-step animated diagrams

Live code editors with real execution

Quizzes with instant feedback

Completion certificates per level

Lifetime access, all future content included

The first 5 Foundation lessons are free, no payment needed. Try them now