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System Design : Design a service like TinyUrl

2 min read 8 months ago
Published on Apr 23, 2024 This response is partially generated with the help of AI. It may contain inaccuracies.

Table of Contents

Step-by-Step Tutorial: Designing a Service like TinyUrl

Introduction

  1. Understand the problem statement: Design a service where a user provides a long URL and receives a short URL, and vice versa.
  2. Recognize the importance of scalability and durability in the design of the service.

Designing the Service

  1. Define the API: Create endpoints for createTiny (to generate a short URL) and getLong (to retrieve the original long URL).
  2. Consider the user interaction with the service through REST API or HTTP.

Generating a Unique Tiny URL

  1. Recognize the need for a unique and short Tiny URL.
  2. Calculate the number of combinations based on the characters used (a-z, A-Z, 0-9).
  3. Determine the length of the Tiny URL based on the desired uniqueness and scalability.

Techniques for Generating Tiny URLs

  1. Discuss different techniques:
    • Generating a random Tiny URL and checking database for uniqueness.
    • Using an MD5 approach to generate a unique Tiny URL.
    • Implementing counter-based approaches to ensure uniqueness.

Counter-Based Approach

  1. Understand the single host approach:
    • Maintain a counter on a single host, which may lead to single points of failure.
  2. Explore the all-hosts approach:
  • Each host maintains an internal counter, ensuring uniqueness but with a higher probability of collision.
  1. Implement a range-based approach:
  • Divide the total combinations into ranges and assign unique ranges to each worker host.

Ensuring Scalability and Performance

  1. Utilize Zookeeper for maintaining configuration information.
  2. Implement caching mechanisms to enhance performance.
  3. Consider global usage by caching data in Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) for faster access worldwide.

Conclusion

  1. Review the key concepts discussed in designing a service like TinyUrl.
  2. Encourage feedback and further exploration of advanced topics in future videos.

By following these steps, you can understand the principles behind designing a scalable and efficient service similar to TinyUrl.

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