SRE Interview Prep Plan (Week 5)
Series Overview:
- week 1: Fundamentals of SRE
- week 2: Automation & Scripting
- week 3: Monitoring, Logging, and Alerting
- week 4: Incident Management Lifecycle
- week 5: Scalability, Performance, & System Design (This post)
Welcome to Week 5 of our SRE interview preparation guide, focusing on scalability, performance tuning, and systems design. This week is crucial for understanding how to ensure that systems can handle growth and maintain performance under different loads. As systems grow in users and data, they must scale effectively to meet demand without compromising on performance. This part will equip you with the foundational knowledge needed to tackle these challenges.
Throughout this week, we'll cover the key concepts of scalability and performance, understand various tuning techniques, and explore real-world case studies to see how theory is applied in practice. Whether you're preparing for an interview or looking to strengthen your skills, this will be valuable for designing and optimizing systems that are robust, efficient, and scalable.
Days 1-3: Understanding Scalability and Performance Concepts
Day 1: Introduction to Scalability
- What is Scalability? Learn the difference between vertical and horizontal scaling and when to use each.
- Challenges of Scaling: Discover common challenges in scaling applications, including database bottlenecks, cache invalidation, and the CAP theorem.
Day 2: Performance Metrics and Tools
- Key Metrics: Understand the importance of latency, throughput, and error rates in measuring system performance.
- Monitoring and Observability Tools: Get acquainted with tools like Prometheus, Grafana, and Elastic Stack for monitoring system health and performance.
Day 3: Architectural Patterns for Scalability
- Microservices Architecture: Explore how decomposing applications into microservices can improve scalability.
- Database Sharding: Learn about database sharding techniques for distributing data across multiple servers to reduce load.
- Caching Strategies: Understand various caching strategies and their impact on performance.