Backend Aspects
Popular Stacks
- Node + ExpressJs
- Node + Feathersjs
- Python + Django
- Python + Flask
- Java + Spring Boot
- Elixir + Phoenix
How to decide?
- Type of API required (REST, WS or Graphql)
- Type of data (and associated operations)
- Community Support (Dont choose like Aqueduct - dart server)
- Cloud support (by AWS, Heroku, Azure, GCP etc)
Authentication Protocols
- Basic (username:password)
- JWT Bearer token
- Oauth 2.0
- SAML
Which to choose?
- Client-Server or Server-Server?
- Token compromise
Storage
- Tabular data like MySql, Postgres etc.
- Unstructured data like MongoDb, Firestore etc.
- Big data or large objects like S3, Azure storage account, Firebase Storage
Database stuffs
- MySql
- Postgres
- MongoDb
- DynamoDb
- Firestore
Which to choose?
- Relational or unstructured data
- Database Procedures
- ACID Compliance
- Support like timeseries, map operations, replication, sharding etc
How to optimise query?
- Proper indexing
- Analyse query generated by ORMs
- Minimize transactions
- Specify which columns are required in ORMs
- Try avoiding big queries and joins
- Use analysing tools like pg_analyse to better optimize your queries
- Separate out data properly in different tables according to relation between them
Logging - The most underrated player
- Server logging
- Services like papertrail, AWS Cloudwatch
What should be logged?
- Request body, query params and app specific headers
- Response body, headers and status codes
- Common stats like origin IP, total response time, request id
- Other app specific logs like controller logs, services logs etc
General Advice
- Proper REST Methods Usage
- Send proper status codes depending upon the operations performed and error response
- Set proper generic response structure
- Follow CRUD operations according to HTTP Methods
- Send verbose error message
- Paginate large dataset returned
- Fine tune response data
- Build flexible endpoints (proper usage of query params, body and headers)
- Minimise response latency
- Avoid too much nested response depending on client expectation
Backend Aspects
By Nayan Jyoti Das
Backend Aspects
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