Grokking Modern System Design Interview

Requirements of a Rate Limiter’s Design

We'll cover the following...

Requirements
- Functional requirements
- Non-functional requirements
Types of throttling
Where to place the rate limiter
Two models for implementing a rate limiter
Building blocks we will use

Requirements

This lesson focuses on designing a rate limiter with the following functional and non-functional requirements.

Functional requirements

Limit the number of requests a client can send within a time window.
Ensure request limits per window are configurable.
Notify the client (via error or notification) when a threshold is crossed.

Non-functional requirements

Availability: The rate limiter must protect the system and be highly available.
Low latency: Checks must occur with minimal latency to avoid impacting user experience.
Scalability: The ...