Scalable Social Platform API

A high-performance, production-ready backend REST API for a social blogging and community platform. Built to handle complex entity relationships and heavy read-traffic by leveraging a robust relational database alongside an in-memory caching layer.

🚀 Tech Stack & Architecture

• Language: Java 17+
• Framework: Spring Boot 3.5 (Spring Web, Spring Data JPA)
• Primary Database: PostgreSQL
• Caching Layer: Redis
• Build Tool: Maven
• Testing Tool: Postman

✨ Key Features & Engineering Focus

• Advanced Relational Data Modeling:
  • Designed a normalized schema using PostgreSQL and Hibernate/JPA.
  • Implemented complex bidirectional mappings (@OneToMany, @ManyToOne) across User, Post, Comment, and Bot entities.
  • Utilized cascading operations and orphan removal to maintain strict data integrity.
• High-Speed Read Operations (Caching):
  • Integrated Redis to cache high-traffic endpoints (like fetching post feeds or comment trees).
  • Significantly reduced database I/O, protecting the PostgreSQL instance from read-heavy bottlenecks.
• Clean Architecture:
  • Strict separation of concerns using Controllers, Services, and Repositories.
  • Data Transfer Objects (DTOs) used to cleanly decouple internal database models from API payload structures.

🛠️ Local Development Setup

Prerequisites

• Java Development Kit (JDK) 17 or higher
• PostgreSQL running on port 5432
• Redis running on port 6379

1. Database Configuration

Create a PostgreSQL database named griddb (or let the app create it based on your properties):

CREATE DATABASE griddb;

Note: Update the username and password in src/main/resources/application.properties if yours differ from postgres / admin123.

2. Start Redis

If you have Docker installed, you can quickly spin up a Redis instance:

docker run -d --name redis-stack -p 6379:6379 redis:latest

3. Run the Application

Use the included Maven wrapper to build and run the Spring Boot application:

Windows:

mvnw.cmd spring-boot:run

Mac/Linux:

./mvnw spring-boot:run

📈 Future Enhancements

• Implement Redis Cache Eviction policies for updated/deleted posts.
• Add Spring Security with JWT for stateless user authentication.
• Paginate the Post and Comment feeds to optimize payload sizes."# Scalable-Social-API"