CDN Architecture: Design Patterns for Global Scale

Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) are fundamental to modern web architecture. Let’s explore key design patterns and implementation strategies for optimal content delivery. CDN Architecture Fundamentals Edge Location Strategy Effective CDN implementation requires careful planning of edge locations: Geographic Distribution Place edge nodes near user concentrations Consider regional traffic patterns Account for network topology Cache Strategy Static content: Aggressive caching Dynamic content: TTL-based invalidation API responses: Selective caching Implementation Patterns 1. Origin Shield Configuration # Nginx origin shield configuration location / { proxy_cache_use_stale error timeout http_500 http_502 http_503 http_504; proxy_cache_valid 200 302 1h; proxy_cache_valid 404 1m; proxy_cache my_cache_zone; proxy_cache_key $scheme$proxy_host$request_uri; } 2. Cache Control Headers Implement proper cache control headers: ...

2 min · Me

CQRS Pattern: Implementation Guide for Modern Applications

Command Query Responsibility Segregation (CQRS) is an architectural pattern that separates read and write operations in your application. While it adds complexity, CQRS can provide significant benefits for applications with complex business logic, different read/write workloads, or high scalability requirements. Let’s explore how to implement it effectively. Why Consider CQRS? Before diving into implementation, let’s understand when CQRS makes sense: Different Scaling Needs: Your read and write workloads have different scaling requirements Complex Business Logic: Your write operations involve complex business rules Performance Optimization: You need to optimize read and write operations independently Eventual Consistency: Your system can tolerate eventual consistency for read operations Core Components of CQRS Command Stack Implementation The command stack handles all write operations. Here’s how to implement it in TypeScript: ...

4 min · Me

Database Scaling Patterns for High-Traffic Applications

As your application grows, database performance often becomes the primary bottleneck. Whether you’re handling millions of users or processing massive datasets, understanding and implementing the right scaling patterns is crucial. Let’s explore practical strategies for scaling databases in production environments. The Three Pillars of Database Scaling Before diving into implementations, it’s important to understand the three main approaches to database scaling: Read Replicas: Scale read operations by distributing them across multiple database copies Sharding: Partition data across multiple databases to distribute write load Caching: Reduce database load by serving frequently-accessed data from memory Let’s explore how to implement each of these strategies in a production environment. ...

4 min · Me

Event Sourcing: Building Event-Driven Systems

In modern distributed systems, maintaining data consistency, tracking changes, and scaling effectively can be challenging. Event Sourcing offers a powerful architectural pattern that addresses these challenges by storing all changes to an application’s state as a sequence of events. Let’s explore how to implement this pattern in a production environment. Why Event Sourcing? Before diving into implementation details, let’s understand why you might want to use Event Sourcing: Complete Audit Trail: Every state change is captured as an immutable event, providing a perfect audit history. Temporal Queries: You can determine the system’s state at any point in time by replaying events. Debug Friendly: When issues occur, you have a complete history of what led to the current state. Event Replay: You can fix bugs by correcting the event handling logic and replaying events. Scale Write/Read Separately: Event storage and read models can be scaled independently. Core Components The Event Store The Event Store is the heart of any event-sourced system. It’s responsible for storing and retrieving events while ensuring consistency. Here’s a TypeScript implementation that handles the core functionality: ...

4 min · Me

Free Web Hosting: Building a Professional Site with Cloudflare Pages

If you have a custom domain and want a professional website without ongoing hosting costs, consider building a static website delivered through a Content Delivery Network (CDN). This approach offers excellent performance, high availability, and simple maintenance. My website uses this architecture, with the domain registration as my only recurring cost. Prerequisites Before getting started, you’ll need: A domain name A Git account (GitHub, GitLab, or similar) Basic command line familiarity About 1-2 hours for initial setup Domain Registration Your choice of domain registrar can significantly impact your annual costs. For supported top-level domains (TLDs), Cloudflare’s Domain Registration service (https://www.cloudflare.com/products/registrar/) stands out by charging only wholesale prices without markup or hidden fees. ...

3 min · Me