System Design Fundamentals

Fundamentals are the language you use before choosing components. In interviews, use this layer to define the target reliability, data semantics, latency budget, capacity, and security baseline.

Study Order

1. Latency vs throughput
2. Back-of-envelope math
3. Scalability axes
4. Availability math
5. CAP / PACELC
6. Consistency models
7. Isolation levels
8. Idempotency
9. Networking essentials
10. Security basics

Visual Enrichment Steps

Use Docs visual enrichment workflow for pages where a diagram clarifies tradeoffs. Best candidates: CAP/PACELC decision flow, consistency timeline, latency budget breakdown, isolation anomaly matrix, and idempotency retry flow.