This second edition teaches C++ programmers the practical skills and modern strategies they need to build strong backend systems. All you need is some basic knowledge of C++, and this book will teach you everything else you need to become a backend developer. Each chapter shows you step-by-step examples, real code, and workflows that you can follow to get results.
The book starts with the basic structure of backend systems and shows how APIs are the most important way of communicating and how to use high-performance solutions like gRPC to go beyond REST. It will teach you to use, test and improve API endpoints in realistic C++ projects. This will help you to feel more confident in designing contracts first and in real-time data flows. The key parts of the book teaches you to cache things, to make sure your data is correct and to avoid common problems with correct troubleshooting.
A big part of the book looks at how to set up and manage modern web servers. It teaches you to use C++ applications with Nginx, SSL, reverse proxies and load balancers in a way that's easy to understand. We then move on to more practical chapters on automated testing, including both unit and integration tests. You get to learn about containerisation, cloud deployment using AWS Elastic Beanstalk, environment configuration, monitoring, and scaling, and all this is taught step-by-step.
The book makes use of simple and clear to teach network programming, how things are set up, and the important patterns that are used in today's distributed systems. While you learn, you please make a note that this edition is focused on practical scenarios and does not attempt to cover highly complex or edge-case architectures.
Key Features
Learn to design APIs and high-performance gRPC endpoints and services.
Create and protect backend apps using environment variables, secrets, and strong configuration management.
Use advanced caching strategies, including in-memory, Redis, and custom eviction for scalable backends.
Set up and optimise Nginx as a web server, reverse proxy, and SSL-enabled application gateway.
Use Google Test to perform unit and integration testing.
Use Docker to create containers.
Use AWS Elastic Beanstalk to deploy backends into production.
Use AWS CloudWatch, alarms, and custom log analytics to check the health of apps and resources
Set up ways to integrate and migrate databases with no deployment errors.
Keep systems updated, roll back if necessary, and make customizations to respond changing traffic and business demands.
Table of Content
Introduction to Backend Development
C++ Refresher and Essentials
Deep Dive into Algorithms
Mastering Git and GitHub
Managing Database Operations with MongoDB
Crafting REST APIs with gRPC
Dealing with Client-Side and Server-Side Caching
Managing Web Servers with Nginx
Testing C++ Backend
Deploying Application
