Requirements

Functional Requirements:

• Create a short URL for a given long URL.
• Return the long URL associated with a given short URL.

Non-Functional Requirements:

List the key non-functional requirements (eg low latency, scalability, reliability, etc.)...

API Design

Define the APIs expected from the system. This is your chance to analyze and define the read and write paths so that you can come up with the high-level design...

POST /api/short-url

Body { "url": "url to shorten" }

GET /api/short-url/{url}

Returns either empty html document which redirects or a body with { "url": "original-url" }

High-Level Design

Describe the overall system architecture. Identify the main components needed to solve the problem end-to-end. Use the diagramming tool to create a block diagram.

First a server for the api, connecting to a fast db. We only need 1 mapping table which means we could use a NoSQL database. Therefore we will use MongoDB as it's faster and works for this simple of a system.

Load balancer depending on the size of the system.

Redis cache for quick access to frequently used URLs.

Detailed Component Design

Deep dive into 2-3 key components. Explain how they work, how they scale, discuss tradeoffs, capacity, and any relevant algorithms or data structures.

Is it really needed? It's all quite simple.