Shopee

Answer-first: Shopee scales its relational database layer past single-node MySQL limits by migrating to TiDB Distributed SQL. By separating stateless SQL compute (TiDB) from stateful key-value storage (TiKV) and columnar analytics (TiFlash), TiDB delivers transparent horizontal auto-sharding and ACID transactions without application-level sharding logic. Chapter 4: Database Scale - The Rise of TiDB and NewSQL ← Series hub | ← Prev | Next → Prerequisite: Read the previous article: Chapter 3: Traffic Shield - Peak Shaving with Kafka and Graceful Degradation. ...

Answer-first: Shopee utilizes Apache Kafka queues for asynchronous peak shaving during 11.11 mega-campaigns. Decoupling order creation from database persistence guarantees sub-second API responses while downstream workers process orders at a controlled rate, protected by Sentinel adaptive load shedding and priority request classification. Chapter 3: Peak Shaving - The Power of Apache Kafka and Graceful Degradation ← Series hub | ← Prev | Next → Prerequisite: Read the previous article: Chapter 2: Flash Sale Engine - Solving Overselling and Hot Keys. ...

Answer-first: Shopee prevents overselling during high-concurrency flash sales by combining local memory caching, Redis inventory sharding, and atomic Lua script decrements. This multi-tier architecture isolates hot keys in Redis memory shards and evaluates stock availability in sub-milliseconds without acquiring relational database locks. Chapter 2: Flash Sale Engine - The Mystery Behind Redis and Hot Keys ← Series hub | ← Prev | Next → Prerequisite: Read the previous article: Chapter 1: Microservices Foundation - The Power of Go, gRPC, and API Gateway. ...

Answer-first: Shopee handles millions of concurrent users by migrating from monolithic systems to high-performance Go microservices. Inter-service gRPC Protobuf communication and Istio/Envoy service mesh sidecars enforce strict SLAs and sub-millisecond RPC latencies across thousands of internal microservice nodes. Chapter 1: Building a Massive Foundation with Microservices, Golang, and gRPC ← Series hub | Next → Prerequisite: This is the first chapter of the Shopee Architecture series. No prior reading is required to start here. You can view the full series roadmap at the Series Hub. ...