GoodNotes Architect Journal
🏠 Index 1. Single Server 2. Selecting DB 3. Relational & SQL 4. ACID Integrity 5. NoSQL Types 6. Scaling Guide 7. Load Balancing 8. SPOF & HA 9. API Design 10. Comm Protocols 11. TCP & UDP 12. REST Design 13. GraphQL Architecture 14. Authentication Protocols 15. JWT & OAuth 2 16. Authorization Models
System Design Study Journal

System Design & Database Architecture

Modular Digital Planner Edition • Select a topic chapter below to study

★ Modular system: easy to read & edit individual chapters!
01
Single-Server Architecture Setup
Monolithic setup, Request/Response execution flow & DNS resolution.
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02
Selecting the Right Database
Relational vs Non-Relational database criteria and trade-offs.
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03
Relational DBs (RDBMS) & SQL Joins
SQL DDL/DML syntax, foreign key joins, and ER diagram schemas.
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04
Transactional Integrity & ACID Properties
Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability guarantees.
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05
Non-Relational (NoSQL) Classifications
Document, Wide-Column, Graph, and Key-Value stores + comparison matrix.
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06
System Scaling Strategies
Vertical Scaling vs Horizontal Scaling trade-offs and Load Balancer topology.
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07
Load Balancer Algorithms & Health Checks
7 routing algorithms (Round Robin, Least Conn, Consistent Hashing) & auto-failover.
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08
Single Point of Failure (SPOF) & High Availability
Eliminating SPOFs via redundancy & self-healing clusters.
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09
API Design, Protocols & Architecture
HTTP/HTTPS anatomy, REST, GraphQL, gRPC, API lifecycle, and 4 design principles.
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10
Communication & Messaging Protocols
Protocol selection framework, HTTP Polling vs WebSockets, gRPC, and AMQP message brokers.
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11
Transport Layer: TCP & UDP Architecture
TCP vs UDP mechanisms, 3-way handshake, packet loss recovery, and real-world system use cases.
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12
RESTful API Design & Resource Modeling
Comprehensive guide to REST API resource modeling, filtering, sorting, pagination, HTTP methods safety/idempotency, status codes, and design best practices.
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13
GraphQL API Architecture & Schema Design
Why GraphQL was created by Facebook, solving REST over/under-fetching, Schema SDL type systems, queries, mutations, subscriptions, and partial error handling.
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14
Authentication Strategies: Basic, Digest & API Keys
Demystifying authentication vs authorization, common misconceptions, HTTP Basic vs Digest challenge-response flows, and API Key verification architectures.
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15
Sessions, JWT Tokens, & OAuth 2 / OIDC
Deep dive into stateful session stores vs stateless JWT verification, dual-token access/refresh lifecycles with HttpOnly cookie security, and OAuth 2 authorization code delegation.
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16
Authorization Strategies: RBAC, ABAC, ACL & Token Enforcement
Comprehensive guide to authorization architectures: RBAC role hierarchies, ABAC attribute evaluation, Google Drive-style ACLs, OAuth 2 token delegation (Vercel to GitHub), and stateless JWT claim enforcement.
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