Overview The Java ExecutorService is a JDK API that allows the user to pass tasks to be executed by a pool of threads asynchronously. It can create and maintain a reusable pool of threads for executing submitted tasks. The service also manages a queue, which is used to queue up tasks…

Overview Publisher/subscriber messaging, or pub/sub messaging, is a form of asynchronous service-to-service communication used in serverless and microservices architectures. In a pub/sub model, any message published to a topic is immediately received by all of the subscribers to the topic. Pub/sub messaging can be used to enable event-driven architectures, or to…

What are WebSockets? How are they different from traditional network protocols? — Overview The WebSocket protocol created new possibilities for communication over the Internet and opened the door to a truly realtime web. WebSockets were first described in 2008 and have enjoyed wide browser support since around 2010. Before WebSockets came along, the “realtime” web existed, but it was difficult to achieve…

A guide for using GitHub Copilot to write code faster. — What is GitHub Copilot? According to GitHub, “GitHub Copilot is an AI pair programmer that helps you write code faster and with less work. GitHub Copilot draws context from comments and code, and suggests individual lines and whole functions instantly.” It is powered by OpenAI Codex, which is an AI system created by OpenAI…

What is gRPC? Why is it important? — What is gRPC? gRPC is a modern open-source high-performance Remote Procedure Call (RPC) framework that can run in any environment. It was developed by Google and is now part of the Cloud Native Computation Foundation(CNCF). It was developed by Google in 2015. Most people assume the ‘g’ to mean Google, but it does…

Introduction to caching in a distributed system — What is Cache? Cache is a small memory, fast access local store where we store frequently accessed data. Caching is the technique of storing copies of frequently used application data in a layer of smaller, faster memory in order to improve data retrieval times, throughput, and compute costs. Why do…

An Introduction to Load Balancers for Beginners — What is Load Balancing? Load balancing refers to efficiently managing traffic across a set of servers, also known as server farms or server pools. Each load balancer sits between client devices and backend servers, receiving and then distributing incoming requests to any available server capable of fulfilling them. What are Load Balancers? A load balancer is a device…

What is Rate Limiter? Rate limiting refers to preventing the frequency of an operation from exceeding a defined limit. In large-scale systems, rate limiting is commonly used to protect underlying services and resources. …

Url Shortener Url shortener is a service that creates a short & unique alias for links of very high size. We can call these shortened aliases as “short links.” These short links can then be used by users, and they are redirected to the original URL when they hit these short URLs…