AdvancedTechnical
5 min
Caching Strategy Deep Dive
CachingPerformanceSystem Design
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Interview Question
Explain different caching strategies and their trade-offs for high-performance applications.
Key Points to Cover
- Cache-aside, write-through, and write-back patterns
- Global vs local caches (CDN vs in-memory)
- Consistency challenges and TTL management
- Cache eviction strategies (LRU, LFU, FIFO)
Evaluation Rubric
Explains caching patterns correctly30% weight
Discusses consistency trade-offs30% weight
Covers global vs local caching20% weight
Mentions eviction strategies20% weight
Hints
- 💡Think Redis vs CDN use cases.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid
- ⚠️Implementing a caching strategy without understanding data access patterns (read-heavy vs. write-heavy).
- ⚠️Setting overly long TTLs, leading to significant data staleness and user dissatisfaction.
- ⚠️Failing to implement cache invalidation mechanisms, resulting in stale data.
- ⚠️Not considering the availability and failure modes of the caching layer itself, leading to cascading failures.
- ⚠️Over-caching by caching data that is rarely accessed or changes very frequently, wasting resources.
Potential Follow-up Questions
- ❓When would you bypass cache?
- ❓How do you handle cache stampede?
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