Design a KV store with transactions

Q: Design a KV store with transactions

This question evaluates a candidate's competency in designing transactional key-value stores, covering concepts such as atomicity, isolation, durability, concurrency control, storage layout, and crash recovery mechanisms.

Q: How do I approach System Design interview questions?

System Design questions require understanding of core concepts and practice. PracHub provides solutions with explanations to help you master system design interviews.

Question

System Design Prompt

Design an in-memory/disk-backed key-value store that supports transactions.

Functional requirements

Basic operations: Get(key) , Put(key, value) , Delete(key)
Transactions:
- Begin()
- Commit()
- Rollback()
Multiple concurrent clients.

Transaction semantics (clarify in interview)

At minimum: atomicity and isolation within the store.
Define isolation level target (e.g., Read Committed or Snapshot Isolation).

Non-functional requirements

Reasonable performance under concurrent access.
Durability (optional depending on scope): data survives crashes.
Support for large datasets (may exceed memory).

Deliverables

APIs
Data model and storage layout
Concurrency control approach
Crash recovery approach (if durability is required)
Complexity and key trade-offs

Design a KV store with transactions

Quick Overview

System Design Prompt

Functional requirements

Transaction semantics (clarify in interview)

Non-functional requirements

Deliverables

Solution

Comments (0)