Infrastructure Design Interview
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Interviewer [00:00:05]: Design a scalable, secure, and highly available infrastructure for a web application that needs to handle variable traffic with peaks of 100,000 concurrent users.
You [00:00:15]: I'd like to start by understanding the requirements better. What type of application is this? What are the key components? What are the specific requirements around availability, scalability, and security? And are there any constraints or preferences regarding cloud providers?
Interviewer [00:00:28]: It's a typical three-tier web application with a React frontend, Node.js API layer, and PostgreSQL database. We need 99.99% availability, the ability to scale quickly during traffic spikes, and compliance with SOC 2 security requirements. We prefer AWS but are open to multi-cloud approaches if necessary.
AI Suggestion:
- Infrastructure Architecture:
- Propose a multi-AZ, multi-region architecture on AWS
- Suggest infrastructure-as-code approach using Terraform/CloudFormation
- Recommend containerization with ECS/EKS for application components
- Discuss network design with VPC, subnets, and security groups
- Frontend Delivery:
- Suggest S3 + CloudFront for static asset hosting
- Discuss CDN caching strategies and invalidation
- Mention Route 53 for DNS with health checks and failover routing
- API Layer:
- Recommend ECS/EKS with auto-scaling for the Node.js services
- Discuss API Gateway for request routing and throttling
- Suggest Application Load Balancer with health checks
- Mention blue-green deployment strategy
- Database Layer:
- Recommend RDS PostgreSQL with Multi-AZ and read replicas
- Discuss backup strategy and point-in-time recovery
- Suggest connection pooling and query caching
- Security & Compliance:
- Explain WAF configuration for common web vulnerabilities
- Discuss IAM roles and least privilege principle
- Mention encryption at rest and in transit
- Suggest AWS Config and Security Hub for compliance monitoring
- Observability & Operations:
- Recommend CloudWatch for monitoring and alerting
- Discuss centralized logging with Elasticsearch/CloudWatch Logs
- Suggest automated incident response with Lambda
⚙️ Cloud Infrastructure Design
Get expert guidance on designing scalable, secure, and cost-effective cloud infrastructures across AWS, Azure, and GCP, with strategies for multi-region, multi-cloud, and hybrid architectures.
⚡ CI/CD Pipeline Architecture
Receive instant recommendations on designing robust CI/CD pipelines, including build automation, testing strategies, deployment patterns, and approaches for achieving continuous delivery with minimal risk.
🔄 Infrastructure as Code
Access real-time guidance on IaC best practices using tools like Terraform, CloudFormation, and Pulumi, with strategies for managing state, handling secrets, and implementing modular, reusable infrastructure patterns.
🔍 Containerization & Orchestration
Get instant suggestions for containerization strategies using Docker and orchestration with Kubernetes, including cluster design, deployment strategies, and approaches for managing configuration and secrets.
🔒 Security & Compliance
Receive guidance on implementing secure infrastructure with defense-in-depth strategies, including network security, identity management, encryption, and compliance controls for various regulatory frameworks.
📈 Observability & Reliability
Access expert advice on designing observable and reliable infrastructure with monitoring, logging, tracing, and alerting strategies, plus approaches for implementing SLOs and error budgets.
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