MSDN Documentation

System Architecture Overview

This document provides a high-level overview of the core architectural components and design principles that underpin our platform. Understanding the architecture is crucial for effective development, integration, and maintenance.

Figure 1: High-level system architecture.

Core Components

Our system is composed of several key layers and services, designed for scalability, resilience, and modularity:

• Presentation Layer: Handles user interface logic and user interactions. This can include web applications, mobile clients, and desktop applications.
• API Gateway: Acts as a single entry point for all client requests, routing them to the appropriate backend services. It handles concerns like authentication, rate limiting, and request transformation.
• Microservices: A collection of independent services, each responsible for a specific business capability. Examples include User Management, Product Catalog, Order Processing, and Notification services.
• Data Persistence Layer: Manages data storage and retrieval. We utilize a polyglot persistence approach, employing different database technologies (e.g., SQL, NoSQL, Graph Databases) based on the specific needs of each service.
• Asynchronous Communication: A message queue (e.g., Kafka, RabbitMQ) is used for inter-service communication, enabling event-driven architecture and decoupling services.
• Background Processing: A dedicated layer for handling long-running tasks, scheduled jobs, and batch processing.

Architectural Principles

The following principles guide our architectural decisions:

• Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) / Microservices: Breaking down the system into small, independent, and deployable services.
• Event-Driven Architecture: Services communicate through events, promoting loose coupling and responsiveness.
• Scalability: Designing components to handle increasing loads horizontally and vertically.
• Resilience: Implementing fault tolerance, redundancy, and graceful degradation to ensure system availability.
• Observability: Integrating comprehensive logging, monitoring, and tracing to understand system behavior.
• Security: Implementing security best practices at all layers, including authentication, authorization, and data protection.

Data Flow Example: Placing an Order

1. The user selects items and initiates an order from the Presentation Layer.
2. The request is sent to the API Gateway.
3. The API Gateway authenticates the user and routes the request to the Order Processing Service.
4. The Order Processing Service validates the order, checks inventory (via Product Catalog Service), and creates an order record in the Data Persistence Layer.
5. The Order Processing Service publishes an "OrderPlaced" event to the message queue.
6. The Notification Service subscribes to "OrderPlaced" events and sends a confirmation email to the user.
7. The Payment Service also subscribes to "OrderPlaced" events to initiate payment processing.

Technology Stack Highlights

While our architecture is designed to be technology-agnostic at a conceptual level, here are some of the key technologies employed:

• Backend Languages: C#, Java, Python
• Frontend Frameworks: React, Angular
• Databases: PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis
• Messaging: Apache Kafka
• Containerization: Docker, Kubernetes
• Cloud Platform: Azure

This architectural overview serves as a foundation for understanding how different parts of the system interact. Deeper dives into specific services and technologies are available throughout the MSDN documentation.