Real-World Patterns

Production systems use additional infrastructure beyond basic protocols. This chapter covers common patterns for scaling, reliability, and performance.

Infrastructure Components

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    Modern Web Architecture                          │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                                     │
│  User ──> CDN ──> Load Balancer ──> App Servers ──> Database        │
│            │           │                 │                          │
│            │           │                 └── Cache (Redis)          │
│            │           │                                            │
│            │           └── WAF (Web Application Firewall)           │
│            │                                                        │
│            └── Edge cache, DDoS protection                          │
│                                                                     │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Each component serves specific purposes:
  CDN:           Cache static content near users
  Load Balancer: Distribute traffic, health checks
  WAF:           Security filtering
  App Servers:   Business logic
  Cache:         Fast data access
  Database:      Persistent storage

Key Topics

1. Load Balancing: Distributing traffic across servers
2. Proxies: Forward and reverse proxies
3. CDNs: Content delivery at scale
4. Connection Pooling: Efficient resource usage