Independent IT Tech Journal

Infrastructure knowledge with a little more signal and soul.

Baikal Server is a living tech blog for backend engineers, platform teams, DevOps specialists, and founders who care about the systems underneath the product.

Fresh focus: production reliability, cloud efficiency, performance, security, and the small operational decisions that shape resilient products.

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Latest Articles

Recent writing across DevOps, infrastructure, cloud and performance.

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Performance
Performance

Database Connection Pooling: Beyond the Basics

How to size, monitor, and tune connection pools for high-throughput services without exhausting the database.

15 min read · Apr 18, 2026
DevOps
DevOps

Implementing Zero-Downtime Deployments

Deployment patterns that let teams ship faster without waking users or on-call engineers.

10 min read · Apr 15, 2026
Infrastructure
Infrastructure

Building a Modern Observability Stack

A grounded walkthrough for building a useful observability stack with logs, metrics, traces, and sane dashboards.

18 min read · Apr 12, 2026
Cloud
Cloud

Cloud Cost Optimization Strategies

Ways to cut waste in cloud environments while keeping performance and resilience where they need to be.

12 min read · Apr 10, 2026
Performance
Performance

API Rate Limiting Algorithms Explained

Token bucket, leaky bucket, and sliding window explained with practical trade-offs for production APIs.

8 min read · Apr 8, 2026
Security
Security

Essential HTTP Security Headers in 2026

The headers teams still miss in production and how to roll them out safely without breaking the app.

11 min read · Apr 5, 2026
Infrastructure
Infrastructure

Load Balancing Strategies for Distributed Systems

A practical comparison of balancing strategies for services that need predictable performance under load.

14 min read · Apr 2, 2026
Infrastructure
Infrastructure

Microservices Communication Patterns

How to choose the right communication pattern between services without overcomplicating the platform.

13 min read · Mar 28, 2026
Performance
Performance

Redis Caching Patterns for High-Performance Applications

Production-friendly Redis patterns for reducing load, avoiding stampedes, and keeping cache invalidation under control.

16 min read · Mar 25, 2026

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Weekly editorial notes on backend systems, infrastructure and hard-earned production lessons.