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:

• No need to store the same URL again if it already exists in the system;

Capacity Estimation

• Reads are expected to be 10x the volume of writes;
• Resources are completely independent and can be sharded/scaled horizontally without challenge.

API Design

• GET shorten/{url}
  • Using a GET for ease of use with browsers.

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.

Database Design

• Given the volume and the nature of queries, KV-type database is ideal for the use case, such as DynamoDB.
• Hashing the URL as the primary key of the table with hash alg 1, and then using hash-alg 2 of the URL as sort key and then store the URL itself as the value.
• DynamoDB is auto-scaling;

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.