Scalability Challenges of Whatsapp Architecture

Managing 50 billion messages daily is an enormous undertaking with numerous scalability issues. Many technological challenges had to be solved by WhatsApp’s backend architecture to continue providing a flawless service to its enormous user base.

• With millions of users online WhatsApp needed to manage numerous concurrent connections and that was one of the main reasons why WhatsApp used Erlang for its high concurrency with lightweight processes and efficient inter-process communication which allowed the system to handle multiple connections simultaneously.
• Additionally, WhatsApp’s fault-tolerant architecture in Erlang enabled it to isolate errors within individual processes without affecting the system as a whole, guaranteeing that the system would continue to function even in the event of hardware or network outages.
• Another Challenge that occurs while handling a huge amount of data is storing and retrieving the user data quickly.To overcome this challenge WhatsApp used distributed databases like Minesa. They also used in-memory storage systems to cache frequently accessed data.
• Addressing these challenges through a combination of software redesign, technical robustness, and policy closures, WhatsApp has been able to scale up to handle a large number of messages and continue to deliver reliable services to its global users.

In the ever-evolving world of Technology certain stories inspire us all, One such outstanding case is WhatsApp, the messaging giant that successfully supported a staggering 50 billion messages per day. Founded from humble beginnings in 2009 by Jan Koum, WhatsApp stands as a beacon of technological progress in the rapid pace of digital communication. In this article, we are going to delve into the architecture and system design of WhatsApp.