System DesignArchitectureScalabilityBest Practices
System Design Patterns for LLM-Powered Applications
Architectural patterns for building scalable, reliable, and cost-effective LLM applications.
Core Patterns
- Gateway pattern for unified API access
- Circuit breaker for provider resilience
- Cache layer for repeated queries
- Queue-based async processing
Data Flow
Request → Rate Limiter → Cache Check → Model Router → LLM Provider → Response Validator → User
Scalability Considerations
Design stateless services that can scale horizontally. Use connection pooling for database writes.
Cost Control
| Approach | Cost Reduction | Implementation Effort |
|---|---|---|
| Semantic caching | 40-60% | Low |
| Model routing | 30-50% | Medium |
| Batch processing | 20-40% | Medium |
| Spot/preemptible | 60-80% | High |