System Design
Intermediate
Rate Limiting and Backpressure
Protect services from abuse, traffic spikes, and dependency overload.
30 min
3 sections
rate-limits
backpressure
resilience
1
2
3
01. Rate limit at multiple layers
Section 1 of 3
Use edge limits for obvious abuse, API gateway limits for tenants and tokens, service-level limits for expensive endpoints, and worker limits for downstream dependencies. The closer the limit is to the cost, the more accurate it can be.
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Rate limit dimensions:
- IP address for anonymous traffic.
- Account ID for authenticated traffic.
- API token for partners.
- Tenant ID for SaaS fairness.
- Endpoint cost for expensive operations.
- Region to protect local capacity.Back to Course