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Case Studies

Case Studies

Deep dives into low-level database architecture, C++ pattern mining, memory managers, and the mechanics of local-first agent environments.

Engineering2026-07-20

Pomai Ecosystem - AI-Driven Observability: How I Built a 1M+ Log Analysis Pipeline on a Budget

When my system logs hit the million-mark, human inspection became impossible. Here is how I turned raw logs into actionable intelligence using RAG, Kafka, and CPU-only AI.

Quan Van
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Engineering2026-07-21

Pomai Ecosystem - The AI Reality Check: Why I Chose Qwen2.5 0.5B and Ditched Heavy Frameworks

When building an AI-native SaaS, it is easy to get caught up in the hype of massive models and complex frameworks. Here is why I went the opposite direction: a tiny 0.5B model and raw Python.

Quan Van
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Infrastructure2026-08-02

Pomai Ecosystem - From Port-Hell to High Availability: Architecting an Enterprise-Grade API Gateway

When my microservices multiplied, managing routing and security became a nightmare. Here is how I evolved from a custom-coded proxy to a Highly Available Kong and Nginx Gateway cluster.

Quan Van
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Architecture2026-07-19

Pomai Ecosystem - When One Service Falls, They All Shouldn't: Building Resilience with Circuit Breakers and Retry Logic

In a distributed system, a single service failure can cascade through the entire ecosystem. Here is how I learned that circuit breakers alone weren't enough and why retry logic with exponential backoff became essential for keeping Pomai Ecosystem alive during network hiccups.

Quan Van
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Architecture2026-07-28

Pomai Ecosystem - The Dual-Write Dilemma: Ensuring Data Integrity in a Distributed Ecosystem

Splitting a monolith into microservices is easy. Keeping the data consistent across them is the real nightmare. Here is how I solved the dual-write problem using the Transactional Outbox Pattern and Kafka.

Quan Van
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Engineering2026-07-23

Pomai Ecosystem - The 3-Pillar Architecture: Decoupling Real-time Data, Analytics, and AI

How I architected a highly scalable, polyglot microservices ecosystem by decoupling data ingestion, stream processing, and AI reasoning into three resilient pillars.

Quan Van
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Engineering2026-07-25

Pomai Ecosystem - The Polyglot Contract: Taming Microservices Chaos with Protobuf

How a single JSON typo crashed my data pipeline, and why I migrated my entire Go, Python, and Node.js ecosystem to Protocol Buffers.

Quan Van
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System Design2026-07-17

Pomai Ecosystem - From a Multi-Module Monolith to a Microservices Architecture`

Pomai Ecosystem did not begin as a microservices platform. Like many personal projects, it started with a single frontend application connected to a backend organized as a multi-module monolith. Every feature lived inside the same repository and shared the same Firebase Firestore database. Modules communicated through direct imports or internal REST endpoints while remaining deployed as one application.

Quan Van
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Platform Engineering2026-07-24

Pomai Ecosystem - Taking Back Control: Why I Built a Self-Hosted CI/CD Pipeline for My Microservices

Moving to microservices solved my scaling issues, but it created a deployment nightmare. Here is why I bypassed cloud CI/CD solutions to build a fully on-premise pipeline using Gitea, Jenkins, and Portainer.

Quan Van
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System Design2026-07-17

Pomai Ecosystem - The Real Challenges of Breaking Down a Monolith to Microservices`

Pomai Ecosystem did not begin as a microservices platform. Like many personal projects, it started with a single frontend application connected to a backend organized as a multi-module monolith. Every feature lived inside the same repository and shared the same Firebase Firestore database. Modules communicated through direct imports or internal REST endpoints while remaining deployed as one application.

Quan Van
Read →