Overview
What this challenge is about.
Benchmark Redis, KeyDB, and DragonflyDB as a sidecar cache for a hotel-search API, then earn a verifiable certificate.
The scenario
Voa sells a hotel-search API to online travel agencies across Europe; its catalog of room availability changes constantly, so the same popular searches are recomputed thousands of times per minute against a single PostgreSQL primary that is now the bottleneck.
The Brief
What you'll do, and what you'll demonstrate.
Decide which of Redis, KeyDB, or DragonflyDB should serve as Voa's in-memory sidecar cache, and prove the choice against the team's real traffic.
Earning criteria — what you'll demonstrate
- Translate a captured production workload into a faithful, repeatable benchmark setup.
- Measure and interpret median versus tail latency, throughput, and memory efficiency under sustained load.
- Compare in-memory stores on operational properties — replication, failover, and snapshotting — that affect a small team.
- Write a decision memo that ties a recommendation to evidence and states revisit triggers.
- Sequence a low-risk production rollout with a feature flag and a rollback path.
Program Fit
Where this fits in your program.
Sharpens the same skills your degree expects you to demonstrate.
Aligned coursework coming soon.
Skills
Skills you'll demonstrate.
Each one shows up on your verified credential.
- Nosql
Apply nosql to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Redis
Apply redis to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Benchmarking
Apply benchmarking to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Cache Design
Apply cache design to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Decision Memos
Apply decision memos to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Operational Properties
Apply operational properties to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
Careers
Career paths this challenge builds toward
Completing this challenge demonstrates skills that transfer directly to these roles:
Backend Engineer
Selecting and proving an in-memory cache against real traffic is core backend work; this challenge builds the habit of grounding infrastructure choices in measured evidence and shipping them safely behind a flag.
This challenge sharpens
- nosql
- cache-design
- benchmarking
Platform Engineer
Platform teams own the data stores other services depend on. Comparing replication, failover, and snapshotting across engines and writing a defensible recommendation mirrors the day-to-day judgment a platform role demands.
This challenge sharpens
- operational-properties
- redis
- decision-memos
Site Reliability Engineer
Reliability hinges on knowing how a system behaves under sustained load and how it recovers from failure. Benchmarking tail latency and planning a low-risk rollout with rollback are direct SRE competencies.
This challenge sharpens
- benchmarking
- operational-properties
- cache-design