Design the data beneath intelligent systems

Connect storage internals, transactions, event streams, and retrieval indexes to correctness and operating cost.

10 published lessons1 module312 min of guided study
  1. 01
    Design the data beneath intelligent systemsadvanced · 10 lessons

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Design the data beneath intelligent systems

Connect storage internals, transactions, event streams, and retrieval indexes to correctness and operating cost.

  1. 01

    Data models and access paths

    Choose keys, constraints, and indexes from concrete query shapes and measured selectivity rather than database fashion.

    29 min
  2. 02

    Write-ahead logging and recovery

    Trace the ordering that makes acknowledged writes recoverable and calculate a realistic replay and restoration budget.

    30 min
  3. 03

    MVCC and isolation

    Use concurrent transaction histories to distinguish snapshots, write conflicts, write skew, and serializable retry obligations.

    33 min
  4. 04

    LSM trees and compaction

    Trace writes through memory and sorted runs, then reason about amplification, tombstones, and compaction debt.

    31 min
  5. 05

    Partitioning and hot keys

    Choose partition ownership and rebalance mechanics while accounting for skew, ordering, and the limits of adding shards.

    30 min
  6. 06

    Stream processing and event time

    Define window completeness, watermark behavior, state retention, and sink recovery for out-of-order event streams.

    32 min
  7. 07

    Change data capture

    Build a consistent database-to-index projection by joining a snapshot to a retained log and applying replayable changes.

    31 min
  8. 08

    Schema evolution and data contracts

    Separate serialization compatibility from semantic correctness and migrate producers, readers, and historical data safely.

    30 min
  9. 09

    Vector indexes and retrieval

    Define a distance metric, establish an exact baseline, and evaluate approximate retrieval under filters and changing data.

    33 min
  10. 10

    Lakehouse transactions and tables

    Explain atomic table snapshots, optimistic commit validation, delete semantics, and safe cleanup on object storage.

    33 min
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