Day 33: Implementing Log Consumers - The Workers That Never Sleep

Part of the 254-Day Hands-On System Design Series

Welcome back to our distributed systems journey!

Today we're diving into one of the most critical components of any large-scale system: log consumers. These are the tireless workers that process millions of messages behind the scenes at companies like Netflix, Uber, and Airbnb.

By the end of this lesson, you'll have built a production-ready consumer system that can scale horizontally and handle real-world traffic patterns.

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The Real-World Context

Picture this: Netflix's recommendation engine processes millions of user interactions every second. Each click, view, and rating generates logs that must be processed in real-time to update recommendations. Behind this magic are log consumers - specialized workers that continuously transform raw data into actionable insights.

Similarly, when you request an Uber, your location data, driver availability, and pricing information all flow through log processing systems that make split-second decisions affecting millions of users.

[📊 Insert: Component Architecture Diagram]