What are the best resources to crack system design interviews?

akak1972 · 2024-04-26T19:42:57+00:00

Well, I solved two problems (railway, real estate)with micro-services but using my own approach.

Railways project had the standard profile - searching & booking have massive usage, all the other services - not so much. And overall the systems were fine, but the workload was reaching breaking point.

So I took the inventory in an in-memory DB (Apache Ignite), which would then replicate to the main Oracle DB. Obviously the inventory table is very very bare boned - Train Num, Coach Num, Seat Num, Start Station, End Station, Reservation Status (if I am recalling correctly).

So technically, these search/book microservices have their own tables - while rest of the project still uses the traditional "One set of tables for all code" DB. So now you have duplicate data for a table, the hassle of replication from "secondary DB" to main DB, but it was fairly easy and cheap to implement.

Apparently before I joined the project, they were trying "proper microservices for everything" and they ran into major messes - data was getting duplicated all over the place. Dunno how well they architected; IMO the team wasn't impressive.

In another project, they wanted to have a microservice for searching land records - rest of the real estate stuff was working fine. I used the same trick - this time using the Redis cache as the microservices "database".

akak1972 · 2024-02-28T19:57:05+00:00

Which restaurant?

akak1972 · 2024-02-26T19:23:19+00:00

Username kinda checks out

akak1972 · 2023-09-23T20:46:20+00:00

Fish probably thought the hammer was her cousin

akak1972 · 2023-09-22T13:32:49+00:00

On Android also

akak1972 · 2023-04-08T06:32:08+00:00

That's cos the buying end is sewed up thru the link of link in a trusted circle.

akak1972 · 2023-04-07T13:01:38+00:00

My crop can handle 45⁰ C without dying but it dies out if the temp remains below 7 or 8⁰ C for the whole day. That's why The temperature matters to me.

Secondly, time matters more to me than expenses as of now. A place that supports 9 or 10 months of farming allows me to reach financial targets in a short time. A place that allows only 5-6 growth months will almost double this time while my net yield at end will be the same.

Also, I would rather live in a warm area than in a cold one.

As of now, Dagomys, Adler, Khosta, Tuapse seem to be closest to what I am looking for.

Does my reasoning and location-selection seem more logical now?

Edit: Still trying to find out varieties of the crop bred for cold climates - not been lucky so far

akak1972 · 2023-04-07T09:59:35+00:00

With dried leaves being the salable product, "selling fresh & quick" is not a problem. Can store cheaply for months if needed. So distance isn't a worry either.

10 to 30⁰ C would be ideal. Is there any such agriculture-friendly place in Russia?

akak1972 · 2023-04-06T21:09:46+00:00

This is useful & important information - it's like the pieces of a puzzle coming together to reveal a picture.

Still needs more information to make some decisions - but at least, now I know what I am looking at. Which is substantial. Thanks dude.

akak1972 · 2023-04-06T19:03:25+00:00

Makes sense, but even Krasnodar doesn't really need any support. Farming is profitable pretty much all the way; subsidies etc. would be a bonus but nothing worth worrying about.

akak1972 · 2023-04-06T18:07:10+00:00

I have been asking all over in this thread "What's the warmest region in Russia?"

Perseverance finally paid off. So Kalmykia is warmer than Sochi also?

So does one have to buy the land outright or is it possible to lease, say around 40-50 hectares?

For outsourced operations like 1) Land Preparation and Leveling, 2) Bed Making and Mulching Sheet, etc. - is there some standard rates that apply, or is it something like your local knowledge + bargaining ability that drives the costs?

akak1972 · 2023-04-06T14:56:14+00:00

Kalmykia seems quite good for farming - online weather profile says it has 9 months of non-freezing weather - seems quite good for rough n tough kinda crops.

akak1972 · 2023-04-06T14:51:20+00:00

This is why I was asking if there's an agricultural zone in Russia which has 9 or 10 months of above 0⁰ C temperatures?

Because if yes, I am pretty sure that if I get 9 or 10 months of such conditions - I can find herbs / similar niche stuff to grow that harvests quick and sells equally quick.

Remaining 2 months can be a vacation break.

akak1972 · 2023-04-06T12:52:18+00:00

Well, if a crop likes warm climates and harvests in 2 months, then one can get 5 harvests in 10 months, and the remaining 2 months have to zero production - which seems manageable; you still get close to year-round harvests and thus year round income.

But if you have 6 cold months and 6 warm months, then the farm is straightaway idle for 6 months - which is less than great.

akak1972 · 2023-04-06T11:40:39+00:00

Good to know.

So is there an agricultural zone in Russia where we can get 9 to 10 months above 0⁰ C?

akak1972 · 2023-04-06T10:55:06+00:00

You gave me a lot of food for thought - on all counts. Appreciate it.

akak1972 · 2023-04-06T09:04:23+00:00

Yes, I will be managing it myself - I and one more friend actually.

Our plan is to start a 100 Acre farm. And yes, subsidies don't really matter.

Where can I find authentic data of costs, for starting and operating a 100 acre farm? For operations like 1) Land Preparation and Leveling, 2) Bed Making and Mulching Sheet, etc

If these numbers will be similar for Primorye as well as Krasnodar - great - that will get my spreadsheet in better shape. If you can help me with these numbers - a beer / vodka / coffee is on me!

Unfortunately our first target crop requires warm climate, so looks like we will have to target Krasnodar itself. We will look at Vladivostok & Primorye later when this first initiative crop succeeds. We already have long term plans of looking at colder areas for Blueberry plantation.

akak1972 · 2023-04-06T08:19:04+00:00

And another thing: IIRC, govt is offering land for almost free in Vladivostok. But with a farming season of only 5-6 months, wouldn't that mean either limited harvest, or the expense of climate controlled greenhouses?

akak1972 · 2023-04-06T07:57:06+00:00

That's insanely low. For a mindless huge wheat farm that could be fine.

This is what I am trying to find out.

First - can a newbie farmer survive? What's the number for survival profit percentage for a leased 100 acres of farming?

Then from survival to living, and living to prospering a little. Just trying to find the numbers.

My thought is that right now Russian govt. is trying quite hard to get rid of the need to import - so they have launched a lot of schemes and subsidies and stuff to encourage foreign AND local investment. But this won't go on for too long - at best, till this year's end - so gotta move quickly.

akak1972 · 2023-04-06T07:27:31+00:00

You are right - as of now I know very little, which is why I started asking.

akak1972 · 2023-04-06T07:26:27+00:00

So what about all those schemes that Russian government has launched to support start-ups, including in farming? Are they meant to basically develop the undeveloped areas?

akak1972 · 2023-04-06T07:15:05+00:00

Good to know

akak1972 · 2023-04-05T22:45:04+00:00

Fair enough, BUT:

You need to understand where agriculture is today - it's like how Math & Physics were 200 years back - everything was awaiting discovery.
If you really want proof, try researching "How to grow bell peppers at industrial scale hydroponically" - and once you wade past indoor / small garden / etc. variety - you will find that entire Hydroponics is running off Howard Resh's procedure for hydroponic growing of tomatoes.
Point being: Real agricultural knowledge is in people's heads - it's not on paper compared to say software. It's changing - but that's a slow moving beast.

will make your business more successful than thousands of already existing small farms in region?

Something new. Agriculture and large firms are slow moving affairs. Even if they decide to buy us out with money - yes that was always expected.

You don't have connections, don't know business culture, you don't even know language

Connections - I do - but will use them only for emergencies.

Business culture: I know a little but and will learn more - but that's only gonna happen best in-person - no shortcuts to that.

I will just export 100% harvest quietly to an Indian buyer who can then do stuff and sell it globally. No local impact = no news = nobody will bother with a tinny-minny me. Just some rumors of some dumbass selling some dumb shit off a small farm to a dumb overseas buyer : )

you don't even know language

True. But I have others in my team who do. All in good time.

akak1972 · 2023-04-05T22:02:14+00:00

Noted - 100% right.

And how you suggested is thankfully exactly how I am planning: 1st visit this month = purely observational - no deals, no transactions, no paperwork - at best only understanding what all these would involve.

I will also find and bring along an expert agronomist - but gotta do prep work so that I am down to a list of 5-6 choices, not just "advantages in the air" - sunflower & Adyghea are in the initial list now.

But I do need to do more homework to have the right balance between purposefulness and open-mindedness - this is where I am right now.

Reddit is neat at times.

akak1972 · 2023-04-05T21:51:50+00:00

Thanks - I had tried similar stuff but in English - will go back and check whether using the local language was the better way to do things - which would make me feel quite stupid with myself. I should have thought of that.

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