No Bad Questions About DevOps
Definition of Cell-based architecture
What is cell-based architecture?
Cell-based architecture is a design paradigm used in distributed systems and cloud computing to improve operations' scalability, reliability, and efficiency. In this approach, a system is divided into several highly autonomous subsystems known as cells, which can work separately and communicate with other cells when needed.
This architecture is mainly used by large platforms, such as Google, Amazon, and Netflix, to control complex systems.
What are the different types of cell-based architecture?
Cell-based architecture can be implemented at different levels of granularity.
Zonal cell-based
- A cell is limited to one availability zone (AZ) in a cloud region.
- Requests are directed to the nearest available cell in the same zone, reducing latency.
- If a cell fails in a zone, the traffic can be failed over to another healthy cell in the same or different zones.
Regional cell-based
- Cells are deployed across several cloud regions or data centers.
- To minimize latency and maximize performance, requests are forwarded to the nearest regional cell.
- It also provides regional failover. If an entire zone goes down, traffic can still be served by other regional cells.
Global сell-based
- Cells are being made available all over the world from different geographical regions.
- Traffic routing uses edge networks, content delivery networks (CDNs), and global load balancing to ensure that the request always goes to the nearest and most active cell.
- This model offers high availability, redundancy, and low latency access for everyone worldwide.
What is the difference between microservices and cell-based architecture?
Microservices are designed to split business processes into discreet, interoperable services to enhance modularity, flexibility, and the ability to scale services independently. However, the microservices approach has scalability issues, which are caused by dependencies on shared databases or infrastructure components that do not scale as effectively as the services themselves.
Cell-based architecture further improves microservices by defining independently scalable, self-sufficient cells that reduce the impact of failure. This enhances system performance for large-scale distributed applications.
📖 Discover the architectural pattern that's helping major tech companies maintain reliability while scaling globally. This practical guide to cell-based architecture shows you when to adopt it, when to avoid it, and how to prepare for the transition.
What are examples of cell-based architecture?
Here are three notable examples of companies that have successfully implemented cell-based architecture:
When Slack experienced a network outage, it switched to a cell-based architecture to contain failures within the boundaries of isolated availability zones. This redesign reduced disruptions, enhanced service redundancy, and quickened recovery times, thus improving the system's overall resilience.
DoorDash moved from a single extensive monolithic system to a smaller number of independent cells, also known as Project SuperCell. With the help of the AWS cloud infrastructure, the company contained failure within the cells and thus did not bring down the entire system each time a component failed, and the service could be easily scaled up during peak load.
Prime Video uses cell-based architecture to deliver videos with Amazon so that it can control cell routing to do load balancing, create new cells for high demand, and take an underperforming cell out of rotation. Cells serve video, and there is no state, so if one gets caught in an infinite loop, the system can detect it, reroute the traffic, shut the cell down, and spin up a new one.
Roblox has built a cellular infrastructure to manage massive user traffic, with the service clusters being isolated and run across data centers. Such an approach helped disable non-functional cells without affecting the whole system, greatly enhancing the platform's stability and performance.
Key Takeaways
- Cell-based architecture is a distributed systems design approach that enhances scalability, reliability, and efficiency by dividing a system into independent cells that function autonomously while communicating when necessary. This model is widely used by Google, Amazon, and Netflix to manage complex infrastructures.
- There are different types of cell architectures based on deployment scope. Zonal cell-based architecture limits a cell to a single availability zone, ensuring low latency and fast failover. Regional cell-based architecture spans multiple data centers, allowing traffic rerouting for high availability. Global cell-based architecture distributes cells worldwide, leveraging edge networks and CDNs for optimal performance and redundancy.
- Microservices vs. cell-based architecture highlights a key difference: while microservices break down business processes into independent services, they often rely on shared databases, leading to scalability bottlenecks. Cell-based architecture eliminates this issue by creating self-contained, independently scalable units, improving resilience and performance in large-scale distributed systems.
- Companies like Slack, DoorDash, Amazon Prime Video, and Roblox leverage cell-based architecture to contain failures, enhance scalability, and maintain seamless performance, making it a critical strategy for modern cloud-based systems.
