Caching
7 topics in caching.
This hub groups the most useful caching topics for system design interviews and production architecture reviews. Start with the fundamentals, then open the linked deep dives for diagrams, tradeoffs, failure modes, and implementation notes.
Use these pages to compare design choices, prepare interview explanations, and connect caching decisions with scalability, reliability, latency, cost, and operational complexity.
Caching 101: Cache-Aside, TTL, Invalidation and Redis Basics
Learn caching fundamentals for system design: cache-aside, TTLs, invalidation, Redis, hit rate, stampedes, consistency, and interview examples.
Caching Strategies
Choosing the wrong caching strategy leads to stale data, cache misses, or unnecessary database load.
Cache Eviction Policies: LRU, LFU, FIFO and TTL Tradeoffs
Compare cache eviction policies including LRU, LFU, FIFO, random eviction and TTL-based expiry with hit-rate, memory, and Redis interview tradeoffs.
Distributed Caching
A single Redis server can only hold as much data as its RAM allows. Distributed caching (Redis Cluster, Memcached with consistent hashing) scales.
Content Delivery Network (CDN)
CDNs are essential for any user-facing application. They reduce latency, reduce origin server load, protect against DDoS attacks, and handle traffic.
Cache Warming: Prevent Cold Starts and Latency Spikes
Learn cache warming strategies for production systems: preloading hot keys, deployment warming, CDN warming, invalidation risks, and interview tradeoffs.
Cache Stampede
A cache stampede (thundering herd) occurs when many requests simultaneously miss the cache and hit the database, causing a load spike that can bring down.