February 2026Intermediate to advanced content levelIntermediate to advancedOverviewData is at the center of many challenges in system design today. Difficult issues such as scalability, consistency, reliability, efficiency, and maintainability need to be resolved. In addition, there's an overwhelming variety of tools and analytical systems, including relational databases, NoSQL datastores, plus data warehouses and data lakes. What are the right choices for your application? How do you make sense...