System Design Lifecycle

The System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is similar to the Software Development Life Cycle, but instead of focusing solely on software, it involves designing and building an entire system — including hardware, networks, and software components. For example, when developing an e-commerce platform, we might ask what servers and hardware are needed, how to handle thousands of daily users, and what database design best supports scalability.

The process typically involves several phases: planning, system analysis, design, implementation, testing, deployment, and maintenance. Once the system is running, continuous monitoring is essential. If user traffic grows, we may need to scale up capacity by adding servers or deploying multiple nodes to handle increased load efficiently.