System Design Fundamentals
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Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Communication

There are two ways for one part of a system to ask another part to do something: send the request and wait for the answer before doing anything else (synchronous), or send it and carry on without waiting (asynchronous).

That single decision, made once per hop, shapes how your system fails, how it scales, and how it feels to the user.

Synchronous Communication

In synchronous communication the caller sends a request and blocks until the response comes back. Sender and receiver are both engaged for the whole exchange.

A typical HTTP call between two services works this way

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