Warehouse application

A simple application for warehouse. The backend is a .net core RESTful API and frontend is an AngularJS app.

Start application

• install Docker Compose;
• run docker-compose up -d in the root of the application folder, where docker-compose.yml is located;
• backend api documentation: http://localhost:8080;
• backend api basic healthcheck endpoint: http://localhost:8080/health;
• frontend ui: http://localhost:80; NB: for demo purpose, the frontend only consumes only few backend endpoints;
• mssql database: 127.0.0.1,1433. demo credentials are in the docker-compose.yml;

Project file structure

Folder/File	Description
warehouse-api	contains all the source code for backend api
warehouse-api/src/Warehouse.API	.net core webapi application
warehouse-api/src/Warehouse.Entities	entity/database design
warehouse-api/src/Warehouse.Entities	entity/database design
warehouse-api/src/Warehouse.Services	warehouse services
warehouse-api/tests/Warehouse.ServiceTests	unit tests for warehouse services
warehouse-ui	contains all the source code for frontend angular app
docker-compose.yml	bring up api and mssql as docker containers
dockerfiles	dockerfiles, env and db init script
dockerfiles/api.Dockerfile	api docker file
dockerfiles/demo.env	env for api server
dockerfiles/mssql.Dockerfile	mssql server dockerfile
dockerfiles/db	mssql init script

Backend endpoint brief description

Endpoint	HttpMethod	Description
/api/Inventory	GET	get all articles
/api/Inventory/{id}	GET	get one article
/api/Inventory	POST	add a new article
/api/Inventory/upload	POST	add articles vai file (json) upload
/api/Inventory/{id}	PUT	update an article
/api/Products	GET	get all products
/api/Products/{id}	GET	get one product
/api/Products	POST	add a new product
/api/Products/{id}	PUT	update a product
/api/Products/{id}	DELETE	delete a product
/api/Products	POST	add a new product
/api/Products/sell	POST	sell a product and update inventory/article
/api/Products/upload	POST	add products via file (json) upload
/api/Products/stocks	GET	get stock info for all product
/api/Products/stocks/{id}	GET	get a product stock info

Frontend brief description

Page	Description
http://localhost/inventory	list of all inventory articles
http://localhost/inventory/upload	add inventory articles via json file upload
http://localhost/products	list of all products
http://localhost/products/stock	list of the stock details for all products
http://localhost/products/upload	add products via json file upload

Database design

File upload specification

• you can upload a json file containing the articles via http://localhost:8080/api/Inventory/upload. The json file is expected to have the following structure:

{
  "inventory": [
    {
      "art_id": "1",
      "name": "leg",
      "stock": "12"
    },
    {
      "art_id": "2",
      "name": "screw",
      "stock": "17"
    },
    {
      "art_id": "3",
      "name": "seat",
      "stock": "2"
    },
    {
      "art_id": "4",
      "name": "table top",
      "stock": "1"
    }
  ]
}

• you can upload a json file containing the products via http://localhost:8080/api/Products/upload. The json file is expected to have the following structure (all the articles in the product must be predefind in warehouse):

{
  "products": [
    {
      "name": "Dining Chair",
      "contain_articles": [
        {
          "art_id": "1",
          "amount_of": "4"
        },
        {
          "art_id": "2",
          "amount_of": "8"
        },
        {
          "art_id": "3",
          "amount_of": "1"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "Dinning Table",
      "contain_articles": [
        {
          "art_id": "1",
          "amount_of": "4"
        },
        {
          "art_id": "2",
          "amount_of": "8"
        },
        {
          "art_id": "4",
          "amount_of": "1"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Branches

• main: contains everything
• develop: the develop branch; all the feature branches will be merged to the develop branch;
• test, acc and prod: follows the order test => acc => prod;

Versions:

the prod branch has the version tags.

Discussion points

serverless or monolithic

• why not choose serverless? it is possible (also be open to this option) that the application can be written using aws lambdas or azure functions. The major reasons not to choose the serverless design at this moment are: 1) warehouse is at this moment relatively simple, chosing serverless is bit overkill; 2) simplicity for ops and code base;
• why not choose monolithic? while warehouse is relatively simple at this moment.The functionalities can grow very fast and the user base can also very large. It is also possible that we could have mutiple client applications (web front end, mobile apps etc);

application design

• this application focuses on the backend API (RESTful api);
• if time allows, build a frontend web application using (Angular, REACT or vue) will be ideal;

SQL vs NON-SQL

SQL database is chosen over non-sql with the assumption that the application is written heavy.

deployment && scalability

the application is dockerized and can be deployed as containers using popular cloud providers or kubernetes clusters;

future improvement

• authentication /authorization: at this moment there is no authentication / authorization directly handled in the application. This is based on the assumption there will be a centrilized authentication /authorization layer, like api gateway layer, that is handling them via token or certs.

• prepare the CI/CD pipeline using Github actions, Jenkins/Ansible etc.

• parepare the infra as code if needed.

• logs and performance monitoring;

• more backend and frontend (unit) tests (I would like to take the TDD approach if with enough time).