Reviews-API-Service

The Reviews API has been refractored as a microservice from the existing monolithic API for the e-commerce website, Atelier. It responds to several RESTful endpoints and has been optimized to handle web-scale traffic.

Optimizations:

• Implemented an ETL process to migrate over 5GB/13M+ entries into a redesigned postgreSQL database.
• Scaled horizontally to a micro-service architecture with 3 AWS EC2 instances.
• Installed an NGINX load balancer to distribute traffic across servers and utilize proxy_caching.

Stress Testing

Randomized selection from bottom 10% of 13M+ entry dataset @1000RPS

Optimization	Requests Per Sec	Avg. Response Time	Error %
EC2 Express Server W/PostgreSQL on AWS	1000	4423 ms	34.3
EC2 Ecpress Server W/NGINX Load Balancer	1000	Fail	Fail
2 EC2 Express Server W/NGNIX Load Balancer	1000	362ms	13.1
2 EC2 Express Server W/NGNIX Load Balancer W/ Proxy Cache	1000	43ms	0
3 EC2 Express Server W/NGNIX Load Balancer W/ Proxy Cache	2500	211ms	4.2

Getting Started

1. Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/TheChimeraBros/Reviews-API-Service.git

2. Install Dependencies

npm install

3. Follow the instructions in the README file located in the server folder to set up the database.

4. Configure Environment Variables

Create a .env file based on the example.env file.

5. Start the Server

To run the tests

npm run test

API Endpoints

GET/reviews/

Query Parameters

Parameters should be query strings.

Parameter	Type	Description
page	integer	Product for which to retrieve questions.
count	integer	Specifies how many results per page to return. Default 5
sort	text	Changes the sort order of reviews to be based on "newest", "helpful", or "relevant"
product_id	integer	Specifies the product for which to retrieve reviews.

Response status: 200 OK

  {
  "product": "2",
  "page": 0,
  "count": 5,
  "results": [
    {
      "review_id": 5,
      "rating": 3,
      "summary": "I'm enjoying wearing these shades",
      "recommend": false,
      "response": null,
      "body": "Comfortable and practical.",
      "date": "2019-04-14T00:00:00.000Z",
      "reviewer_name": "shortandsweeet",
      "helpfulness": 5,
      "photos": [{
          "id": 1,
          "url": "urlplaceholder/review_5_photo_number_1.jpg"
        },
        {
          "id": 2,
          "url": "urlplaceholder/review_5_photo_number_2.jpg"
        },
        // ...
      ]
    },
    {
      "review_id": 3,
      "rating": 4,
      "summary": "I am liking these glasses",
      "recommend": false,
      "response": "Glad you're enjoying the product!",
      "body": "They are very dark. But that's good because I'm in very sunny spots",
      "date": "2019-06-23T00:00:00.000Z",
      "reviewer_name": "bigbrotherbenjamin",
      "helpfulness": 5,
      "photos": [],
    },
    // ...
  ]
}

GET/reviews/meta/

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
product_id	integer	Specifies the product for which to retrieve reviews.

Response status: 200 OK

  {
  "product_id": "2",
  "ratings": {
    2: 1,
    3: 1,
    4: 2,
    // ...
  },
  "recommended": {
    0: 5
    // ...
  },
  "characteristics": {
    "Size": {
      "id": 14,
      "value": "4.0000"
    },
    "Width": {
      "id": 15,
      "value": "3.5000"
    },
    "Comfort": {
      "id": 16,
      "value": "4.0000"
    },
    // ...
}

Add a Review

Adds a review for the given product

POST /reviews

Parameter	Type	Description
product_id	integer	Specifies the product for which to retrieve reviews.
rating int	Integer (1-5)	indicating the review rating
summary	text	Summary text of the review
body	text	Continued or full text of the review
recommend	bool	Value indicating if the reviewer recommends the product
name	text	Username for question asker
email	text	Email address for question asker
photos	[text]	Array of text urls that link to images to be shown
characteristics	object	Object of keys representing characteristic_id and values representing the review value for that characteristic. { "14": 5, "15": 5 //...}

Response status: 201 CREATED

Mark Review as Helpful

Updates a review to show it was found helfpul

PUT/reviews/:review_id/helpful/

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
review_id	integer	Required ID of the review to update

Response

Response status: 204 NO CONTENT

Report Review

Updates a review to show it was reported. Note, this action deos not delete the review, but the review will not be returned in the above GET request

PUT/reviews/:review_id/reportl/

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
review_id	integer	Required ID of the review to update

Response

Response status: 204 NO CONTENT