Caching
From fundamentals to production — caching strategies, eviction policies, invalidation, Redis, CDN caching, and multi-level architectures. Practical patterns and a guided final project you build in your own stack (no bundled starter repo).
This free, self-paced course is designed for intermediate learners in performance. Work through the lessons in order, use the objectives below as a checklist, and practice against real systems rather than memorizing slide labels. Estimated time: ~6.5 hours across 14 lessons.
Prerequisites
- Can write a simple HTTP API that reads from a database
- Basic familiarity with Redis or another key-value store is helpful but not required
Course Curriculum
Each lesson is a focused read. Open one, complete any self-checks or exercises, then mark progress in this browser before moving on.
What Is Caching and Why It Exists
16 min
Where Caches Live: The Full Stack
18 min
Caching Strategies: Five Core Patterns
28 min
Eviction Policies: LRU, LFU, FIFO & TTL
22 min
Building an LRU Cache from Scratch
26 min
Cache Invalidation Strategies
24 min
Thundering Herd & Cache Stampede
20 min
Redis Deep Dive
28 min
Distributed Caching: Memcached, Hashing & Hot Keys
24 min
HTTP Caching & Browser Behavior
22 min
CDN Caching & Edge Delivery
20 min
Multi-Level Caching & Cache Warming
22 min
Caching in Microservices & Monitoring
20 min
Final Project: Build a Cached URL Shortener API
40 min
Related articles
Pair this course with deeper guides on the same topic. Articles include diagrams, failure modes, and decision rules.
- Disaster Recovery: RPO vs RTO Explained
- Hot Partitions and Hotspot Mitigation
- Read-Heavy vs Write-Heavy System Design
- Fault Tolerance vs High Availability
See the full Databases & Data Storage topic hub.