Beyond the Blueprint

This is personal blog about the human side of engineering. It's about the journey, not the destination.

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Architecting Real-Time Ads Platform 5 parts
A comprehensive series exploring the design and architecture of real-time advertising platforms. From system foundations and ML inference pipelines to auction mechanisms and production operations, we dive deep into building systems that handle 1M+ QPS while maintaining sub-150ms latency at P99.
Part 1

Real-Time Ads Platform: System Foundation & Latency Engineering

Building the architectural foundation for ad platforms serving 1M+ QPS with 150ms P95 latency. Deep dive into requirements analysis, latency budgeting across critical paths, resilience through graceful degradation, and P99 tail latency defense using low-pause GC technology.

Part 2

Dual-Source Revenue Engine: OpenRTB & ML Inference Pipeline

Implementing the dual-source architecture that generates 30-48% more revenue by parallelizing internal ML-scored inventory (65ms) with external RTB auctions (100ms). Deep dive into OpenRTB protocol implementation, GBDT-based CTR prediction, feature engineering, and timeout handling strategies at 1M+ QPS.

Part 3

Caching, Auctions & Budget Control: Revenue Optimization at Scale

Building the data layer that enables 1M+ QPS with sub-10ms reads through L1/L2 cache hierarchy achieving 85% hit rate. Deep dive into eCPM-based auction mechanisms for fair price comparison across CPM/CPC/CPA models, and distributed budget pacing using Redis atomic counters with proven ≤1% overspend guarantee.

Part 4

Production Operations: Fraud, Multi-Region & Operational Excellence

Taking ad platforms from design to production at scale. Deep dive into pattern-based fraud detection (20-30% bot filtering), active-active multi-region deployment with 2-5min failover, zero-downtime schema evolution, clock synchronization for financial ledgers, observability with error budgets, zero-trust security, and chaos engineering validation.

Part 5

Complete Implementation Blueprint: Technology Stack & Architecture Guide

Series capstone: complete technology stack with decision rationale. Why each choice matters (Java 21 + ZGC for GC pauses, CockroachDB for cost efficiency, Linkerd for latency). Includes cluster sizing, configuration patterns, system integration, and implementation roadmap. Validates all requirements met. Reference architecture for 1M+ QPS real-time ads platforms.

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