Design
Content Delivery Network (CDN)
Design a CDN that caches and serves static content from edge locations close to users, with origin fetch and cache invalidation.
01 - Why interviewers ask this
It tests edge-caching and invalidation strategy — interviewers specifically probe how you avoid a "thundering herd" hitting origin servers on a cache miss.
02 - Where this system exists in the real world
You interact with this design every day.
Cloudflare / Akamai / CloudFront CDN infrastructure
Video/image asset delivery at global scale
Static site and API response caching
03 - What you'll master
Solve this once. Know it forever.
Design edge caching with regional tiers
Solve cache invalidation without a global broadcast
Protect origin servers from traffic spikes
04 - What you'll design
6 functional · 3 non-functional requirements.
Route a user request to the nearest/best edge server
5 more requirements inside
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05 - Companies that ask this
You may face this exact question in your next interview.
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