What will I learn in the Large-Scale Distributed System Design course?

Learn to design highly available, fault-tolerant enterprise architectures: Horizontal vs Vertical scaling, Load Balancers (L4 vs L7), Caching strategies (Redis, CDN), Database replication and sharding, CAP Theorem, Message Queues (Kafka, RabbitMQ), Rate Limiting, and Microservices. Skills gained include: High Availability & Fault Tolerance Architecture Design, Distributed Caching Strategies (Cache-Aside, Write-Through), Database Sharding, Partitioning & Master-Replica Topologies, CAP Theorem & Distributed Consensus Analysis, Asynchronous Event-Driven Architectures (Message Brokers).

Is the Large-Scale Distributed System Design course free?

Yes, all 16 modules and 16 lessons in Large-Scale Distributed System Design are 100% free with interactive code playgrounds on KWAS Academy.

What are the prerequisites for Large-Scale Distributed System Design?

Prerequisites: Backend & Database Knowledge.

AdvancedSystem Design

~28 Hours 16 Lessons100% Free

Large-Scale Distributed System Design

Architect systems serving millions of users — load balancing, caching, sharding, and microservices.

Learn to design highly available, fault-tolerant enterprise architectures: Horizontal vs Vertical scaling, Load Balancers (L4 vs L7), Caching strategies (Redis, CDN), Database replication and sharding, CAP Theorem, Message Queues (Kafka, RabbitMQ), Rate Limiting, and Microservices.

What You Will Learn

High Availability & Fault Tolerance Architecture Design
Distributed Caching Strategies (Cache-Aside, Write-Through)
Database Sharding, Partitioning & Master-Replica Topologies
CAP Theorem & Distributed Consensus Analysis
Asynchronous Event-Driven Architectures (Message Brokers)

Prerequisites & Environment

Backend & Database Knowledge

Complete Course Curriculum (16 Modules)

16 In-Depth Lessons

Module 01

Module 1: System Design Principles & Scalability

1 Lessons

Vertical vs horizontal scaling, SLA/SLO/SLI metrics, latency vs throughput, and bottlenecks.

1.1System Design Foundations & Scalability

18m →

Module 02

Module 2: Load Balancing (L4 vs L7) & Reverse Proxies

1 Lessons

Layer 4 transport vs Layer 7 application load balancing, NGINX, HAProxy, and algorithms.

2.1Load Balancers (L4 vs L7) & Consistent Hashing

20m →

Module 03

Module 3: Distributed Caching (Redis, Memcached, CDN)

1 Lessons

Cache-aside, write-through, write-behind, eviction policies (LRU, LFU), and cache invalidation.

3.1Distributed Caching Patterns (Cache-Aside, Write-Through)

22m →

Module 04

Module 4: Database Scaling: Replication, Partitioning & Sharding

1 Lessons

Master-replica topologies, read replicas, horizontal sharding, and shard key selection.

4.1Database Replication, Partitioning & Sharding

22m →

Module 05

Module 5: CAP Theorem & Distributed Consistency

1 Lessons

Consistency, Availability, Partition Tolerance, PACELC theorem, and eventual consistency.

5.1The CAP Theorem & Eventual Consistency

20m →

Module 06

Module 6: Asynchronous Message Queues (Kafka, RabbitMQ)

1 Lessons

Pub/Sub architectures, message brokers, event-driven decoupling, and backpressure buffers.

6.1Message Queues (Kafka, RabbitMQ) & Event-Driven Systems

22m →

Module 07

Module 7: API Gateway & Rate Limiting Algorithms

1 Lessons

Token Bucket, Leaky Bucket, Sliding Window Log, and API Gateway routing.

7.1API Gateways & Rate Limiting Algorithms

20m →

Module 08

Module 8: Microservices vs Monolithic Architecture

1 Lessons

Service boundaries, Domain-Driven Design (DDD), gRPC vs REST, and Saga pattern distributed transactions.

8.1Microservices Architecture & The Saga Pattern

22m →

Module 09

Module 9: Storage Systems: Object, Block & File

1 Lessons

Object storage (S3), block storage (EBS), file systems (NFS), and LSM-Trees vs B-Trees.

9.1Storage Systems: Object (S3), Block (EBS) & LSM-Trees

20m →

Module 10

Module 10: Observability, Metrics & Distributed Tracing

1 Lessons

The 3 Pillars of Observability (Metrics, Logs, Traces), OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, and Grafana.

10.1The 3 Pillars of Observability & OpenTelemetry

20m →

Module 11

Module 11: Designing Large-Scale Systems (URL Shortener, Feed, Chat)

1 Lessons

Step-by-step system design blueprints: TinyURL, Twitter Newsfeed, WhatsApp Chat, and YouTube Video Streaming.

11.1End-to-End System Design Blueprint (TinyURL & Feed)

24m →

Module 12

Module 12: Distributed Consensus: Raft, Paxos & Zab Internals

1 Lessons

Master distributed consensus protocols: Raft leader elections and log replication, Multi-Paxos quorums, and ZooKeeper Atomic Broadcast (Zab).

12.1Distributed Consensus: Raft, Multi-Paxos & Zab

28m →

Module 13

Module 13: Conflict-Free Replicated Data Types (CRDTs)

1 Lessons

Master local-first collaborative architecture: State-based (CvRDT) vs Operation-based (CmRDT) CRDTs, LWW-Element-Set, and text editing (Yjs/Automerge).

13.1CRDTs & Real-Time Collaborative Architecture

28m →

Module 14