Q1 Video conferencing platform

a) For the Video Conferencing application, a suitable cloud deployment model would be a public cloud
deployment. Public clouds offer scalability, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness, which are crucial for a
platform that aims to serve a wide range of users. With public cloud deployment, the platform can easily
scale resources up or down based on demand, ensuring optimal performance during peak usage times
while minimizing costs during periods of lower usage. Additionally, public clouds often provide robust
security measures, essential for safeguarding the confidentiality and privacy of virtual conferences.

b) To seamlessly integrate the Video Conferencing platform with the existing internal communication
tool, several changes may be required:

1. API Integration: Develop APIs that allow the existing communication tool to interact with the
Video Conferencing platform, enabling features such as initiating meetings directly from the
internal tool.

2. Single Sign-On (SSO): Implement SSO functionality to enable users to access both platforms with
a single set of credentials, enhancing user experience and security.

3. Data Synchronization: Ensure that user data, such as profiles and permissions, remains
synchronized between the two platforms to maintain consistency and prevent conflicts.

4. Customization: Provide customization options to tailor the Video Conferencing platform's

interface and features to align with the existing communication tool's branding and user
preferences.

c) In a microservices-based architecture for the video conferencing platform, essential microservices

could include:

1. User Management Service: Handles user authentication, authorization, profile management, and
permissions to ensure secure access to the platform.

2. Conference Management Service: Manages the creation, scheduling, and administration of

virtual meetings, including features such as participant management and conference settings.

3. Media Streaming Service: Facilitates real-time audio and video streaming during conferences,
ensuring high-quality communication and synchronization among participants.

4. Notification Service: Sends real-time notifications to users for events such as upcoming
meetings, chat messages, or changes in conference status.

d) Suitable hosting technologies for the video conferencing platform include:

1. Containerization with Kubernetes: Kubernetes provides orchestration and scalability capabilities,

allowing for efficient deployment and management of microservices across clusters of servers.
 2. Serverless Computing: Services like AWS Lambda or Google Cloud Functions can be used to
deploy individual microservices, enabling automatic scaling and reducing operational overhead.

3. Content Delivery Networks (CDNs): CDNs can optimize media streaming performance by caching
and delivering audio and video content from edge locations closer to users, improving reliability
and reducing latency.

4. Global Load Balancers: Utilizing global load balancers ensures even distribution of traffic across
multiple regions, improving reliability and fault tolerance for users worldwide.

These technologies offer scalability, reliability, and ease of deployment, crucial for hosting a video
conferencing platform that serves a large user base with varying geographic locations.

e) A good fit for the video conferencing platform would be a NoSQL database, such as MongoDB or
Cassandra. NoSQL databases offer flexibility and scalability, allowing for efficient storage and retrieval of
data associated with user profiles, conference schedules, chat messages, and media streams. They can
handle large volumes of real-time data with low latency, ensuring optimal performance during virtual
meetings. Additionally, NoSQL databases support horizontal scaling, making them well-suited for the
dynamic requirements of a growing platform.

f) Implementing real-time messaging and notifications in the video conferencing platform can be
achieved using technologies and protocols such as:

1. WebSockets: WebSockets enable bidirectional, full-duplex communication between clients and

servers, facilitating real-time messaging for chat functionality and notifications.

2. Pub/Sub Messaging: Utilizing a publish-subscribe messaging system like Apache Kafka or

RabbitMQ allows for scalable and efficient distribution of messages across multiple services and
clients in real-time.

3. Push Notifications: Integrate with push notification services such as Firebase Cloud Messaging
(FCM) or Apple Push Notification Service (APNs) to deliver notifications to mobile devices even
when the application is not actively in use.

These technologies enable instant communication and notification delivery, enhancing the user
experience during virtual meetings.

g) Some disadvantages with this approach of implementation may include:

1. Complexity: Integrating multiple services and technologies can increase complexity, requiring
careful design and maintenance to ensure seamless operation.

2. Latency: Real-time messaging and notifications rely on network communication, which can
introduce latency, affecting the responsiveness of the platform.
 3. Scalability Challenges: Handling a large number of concurrent users and messages in real-time
may pose scalability challenges, requiring robust infrastructure and optimizations.

4. Reliability Concerns: Dependency on external services for messaging and notifications introduces
potential points of failure, requiring redundancy and failover mechanisms to ensure reliability.

5. Security Risks: Real-time communication introduces security risks such as data breaches or
unauthorized access, necessitating robust security measures and regular audits.

Q2 Book Store

a) For more control over the response received from the server side, the client application should use
the RESTful API paradigm. RESTful APIs use standard HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) and adhere
to principles such as statelessness and uniform interface, allowing clients to manipulate resources (e.g.,
books, orders, customers) using well-defined endpoints.

b) In this case, the number of API endpoints needed depends on the desired functionality. At a
minimum, the following endpoints might be required:

● Get all books

● Get book by ID

● Get all orders

● Get order by ID

● Get all customers

● Get customer by ID

● Insert/update/delete book

● Insert/update/delete customer

c) API query to return all details of a specified book:

Endpoint: GET /books/{book_id}

Sample response:

json

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"id": 1,
"title": "To Kill a Mockingbird",

"author": "Harper Lee",

"genre": "Fiction",

"price": 25.99,

"quantity": 100

d) API query to generate the response with the specified structure:

Endpoint: GET /orders/details

Sample response:

json

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"Order_id": 1,

"Customer Name": "Alice Johnson",

"Book Title": "1984",

"Author": "George Orwell",

"Price": 19.99

},

"Order_id": 2,

"Customer Name": "Bob Davis",

"Book Title": "To Kill a Mockingbird",

"Author": "Harper Lee",

"Price": 25.99

},

"Order_id": 3,

"Customer Name": "Charlie Smith",

"Book Title": "The Great Gatsby",

"Author": "F. Scott Fitzgerald",

"Price": 22.50

e) Supporting object structure required on the server side:

● This query would require joining data from the orders, customers, and books tables based on the
relationships defined in the database schema. Then, formatting the resulting data into the
specified JSON structure before sending the response.

f) To support insert/update/delete operations on books and customers, the following API endpoints
could be implemented:

● POST /books: Create a new book

● PUT /books/{book_id}: Update an existing book

● DELETE /books/{book_id}: Delete a book

● POST /customers: Create a new customer

● PUT /customers/{customer_id}: Update an existing customer

● DELETE /customers/{customer_id}: Delete a customer

Each endpoint would handle the corresponding CRUD operation on the database tables for books and
customers, ensuring data integrity and security through appropriate authentication and authorization
mechanisms.
Q3 Movie Database Api
To add a new path "/actors" in this specification, the base URL remains the same. Only the path
component of the URL needs to be updated. The updated base URL will be:

arduino

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https://api.movies.com/v1

b) To retrieve details of movies between IDs 401 and 5009, the consumer application can use pagination.
The API should support query parameters for specifying the range of movie IDs to retrieve. For example:

bash

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GET https://api.movies.com/v1/movies?start_id=401&end_id=5009

This request would retrieve movies with IDs ranging from 401 to 5009.

c) Sample response for the API invocation GET https://api.movies.com/v1/movies/123:

json

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"id": 123,

"title": "The Shawshank Redemption",

"release_date": "1994-10-14",

"genre": "Drama",

"actors": ["Tim Robbins", "Morgan Freeman"],

"rating": 9.3

d) Sample response if the API mentioned in part (c) fails:

json

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"message": "Movie not found"

e) Snippet for enabling passing the query parameter for filtering movies by genre under "/movies" GET
path:

parameters:

- name: genre

in: query

description: Filter movies by genre

required: false

schema:

type: string

The API endpoint will look like:

GET https://api.movies.com/v1/movies?genre=Drama

This request would filter movies by the genre "Drama".

f) Snippet to handle the 500 status code under "/movies" GET path:

yaml

responses:

'500':

description: Internal Server Error

content:
 application/json:

schema:

type: object

properties:

message:

type: string

example: "Internal Server Error. Please try again later."

This snippet defines the response structure for the 500 status code, providing a message to inform the
consumer about the internal server error.

Q4 You are tasked with developing a social media platform that allows users to share photos and connect
with friends.

(a) Two options that could be suitable for the quick development of the backend of the social media
platform are:

1. Django with Django Rest Framework: Django is a high-level Python web framework known for its
simplicity and rapid development capabilities. Django Rest Framework (DRF) provides powerful
tools for building RESTful APIs, making it suitable for developing the backend of a social media
platform that requires API endpoints for photo sharing, user authentication, and commenting.

2. Firebase: Firebase is a mobile and web application development platform that offers various
backend services, including authentication, real-time database, cloud storage, and hosting. It
provides a comprehensive set of features out-of-the-box, allowing for quick development and
deployment of backend functionality without the need for managing infrastructure.

(b) For this application, I would prefer Firebase. Firebase offers a complete backend solution with
features like authentication, real-time database, cloud storage, and serverless functions, all of which are
essential for building a social media platform. Additionally, Firebase provides seamless integration with
frontend frameworks like Angular, React, and Vue.js, enabling rapid development of both frontend and
backend components.

(c) Justification of the need for the following out-of-box features supported by Firebase:

i. Database: Firebase provides a real-time NoSQL database that allows for storing and syncing data
between clients in real-time. This feature is essential for managing user profiles, photos, comments, and
other data in a social media platform.
ii. Storage: Firebase offers cloud storage for storing user-uploaded photos and media files. This feature
ensures scalability and reliability for storing large amounts of multimedia content shared by users.

iii. Real-time communication: Firebase supports real-time data synchronization, enabling real-time
communication features such as live chat, notifications, and updates on user activities.

iv. Authentication: Firebase provides built-in authentication services with support for various
authentication methods, including email/password, social media sign-in, and anonymous authentication.
This feature ensures secure access control and user authentication for the social media platform.

v. Serverless functions: Firebase offers serverless functions through Cloud Functions for Firebase,
allowing developers to run backend code in response to events triggered by Firebase features or HTTP
requests. This feature enables custom server-side logic for handling complex operations like data
validation, notifications, and background processing.

vi. Content moderation: While Firebase does not offer built-in content moderation features, developers
can integrate third-party moderation services or implement custom moderation logic using serverless
functions to filter and moderate user-generated content based on predefined rules and criteria.

Q.1 Web-Based Project Management Platform

(a) For the Project Management application, an appropriate cloud deployment model would be the
hybrid cloud deployment model. This model combines the benefits of both public and private clouds,
allowing organizations to leverage the scalability and cost-effectiveness of the public cloud while
maintaining control over sensitive data and compliance requirements in the private cloud.

The hybrid cloud deployment model fits best for this platform because:

● It offers flexibility and scalability, allowing the platform to scale resources up or down based on
demand, ensuring optimal performance during peak usage times.

● Organizations can utilize the public cloud for non-sensitive data and tasks that require extensive
computing resources, such as collaborative document editing and search functionality.

● Sensitive project data and confidential information can be stored and processed in the private
cloud, ensuring data security and compliance with regulatory requirements.

● Integration with third-party tools can be seamlessly managed across both public and private
clouds, enabling centralized project workflows without compromising data security.

(b) To seamlessly integrate the Web-Based Project Management platform with the existing internal
project management tool, several changes may be required:
 1. API Integration: Develop APIs that allow the existing project management tool to interact with
the Web-Based Project Management platform, enabling features such as task synchronization,
document sharing, and communication channels.

2. Data Migration: Ensure seamless transfer of data and project-related information from the
existing tool to the new platform, maintaining data integrity and preserving historical project
data.

3. Single Sign-On (SSO): Implement SSO functionality to enable users to access both platforms with
a single set of credentials, enhancing user experience and security.

4. Customization: Provide customization options to tailor the Web-Based Project Management

platform's interface and features to align with the existing tool's branding and user preferences.

(c) Essential microservices for a project management platform using microservices-based architecture
could include:

1. Task Management Service: Manages the creation, assignment, and tracking of tasks, including
features such as task prioritization, status updates, and notifications.

2. Document Management Service: Facilitates collaborative document editing, version control, and
file sharing among team members, ensuring seamless content creation and collaboration.

3. Communication Service: Provides channels for team communication, including direct messaging,
group chats, and notifications, to enhance collaboration and coordination among project
members.

4. Search Service: Implements robust search functionality to quickly retrieve project-related

information, messages, documents, and tasks based on user queries, enhancing productivity and
efficiency.

(d) Suitable hosting technologies for hosting the project management platform could include:

1. Containerization with Kubernetes: Kubernetes provides orchestration and scalability capabilities,

allowing for efficient deployment and management of microservices across clusters of servers.

2. Serverless Computing: Services like AWS Lambda or Google Cloud Functions can be used to
deploy individual microservices, enabling automatic scaling and reducing operational overhead.

3. Content Delivery Networks (CDNs): CDNs can optimize content delivery and improve latency for
users accessing the platform from different geographic locations, enhancing reliability and
performance.

4. Edge Computing: Edge computing technologies can be leveraged to deploy computing resources
closer to end-users, reducing latency and improving real-time responsiveness for features like
document editing and task management.
These hosting technologies offer scalability, reliability, and ease of deployment, crucial for hosting a
project management platform that serves a large user base with varying geographic locations.

(e) A good fit for the project management platform would be a relational database like PostgreSQL or
MySQL. Relational databases offer strong data consistency, ACID compliance, and support for complex
queries, making them suitable for managing structured data such as user profiles, project details, tasks,
and documents.

PostgreSQL, in particular, provides advanced features like support for JSON data types, full-text search
capabilities, and robust security mechanisms, enhancing the platform's functionality and performance.
Additionally, relational databases can scale vertically and horizontally to accommodate growing data
volumes and user traffic, ensuring scalability and performance as the platform expands.

(f) To implement real-time messaging and notifications in the project management platform,
technologies and protocols such as WebSockets, Pub/Sub messaging, and push notifications can be
utilized:

● WebSockets: Enable bidirectional, full-duplex communication between clients and servers,

facilitating real-time messaging and updates for features like chat rooms, notifications, and task
assignments.

● Pub/Sub Messaging: Implement a publish-subscribe messaging system to distribute messages

and notifications to subscribers in real-time, ensuring efficient communication and event-driven
updates across the platform.

● Push Notifications: Integrate with push notification services like Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM)
or Apple Push Notification Service (APNs) to deliver instant notifications to users' devices, even
when the application is not actively in use.

These technologies enable real-time communication and notifications, enhancing collaboration and
productivity within the project management platform.

(g) Disadvantages with this approach of implementation may include:

● Increased complexity: Integrating multiple services and technologies for real-time

communication and notifications can introduce complexity, requiring careful design and
maintenance to ensure seamless operation.

● Scalability challenges: Handling a large number of concurrent users and messages in real-time
may pose scalability challenges, requiring robust infrastructure and optimizations to maintain
performance.

● Reliability concerns: Dependency on external services for messaging and notifications introduces
potential points of failure, necessitating redundancy and failover mechanisms to ensure
reliability.
 ● Security risks: Real-time communication introduces security risks such as data breaches or
unauthorized access, necessitating robust security measures and regular audits to protect
sensitive project information.

Q2

(a) Two options that could be suitable for the quick development of the backend of the social media
platform are:

1. Firebase: Firebase is a mobile and web application development platform that offers various
backend services, including authentication, real-time database, cloud storage, and hosting. It
provides a comprehensive set of features out-of-the-box, allowing for rapid development and
deployment of backend functionality without the need for managing infrastructure.

2. Django with Django Rest Framework: Django is a high-level Python web framework known for its
simplicity and rapid development capabilities. Django Rest Framework (DRF) provides powerful
tools for building RESTful APIs, making it suitable for developing the backend of a social media
platform that requires API endpoints for photo sharing, user authentication, commenting, and
user search.

(b) For this application, I would prefer Firebase. Firebase offers a complete backend solution with
features such as authentication, real-time database, cloud storage, and serverless functions, all of which
are essential for building a social media platform. Additionally, Firebase provides seamless integration
with frontend frameworks like Angular, React, and Vue.js, enabling rapid development of both frontend
and backend components.

(c) Justification of the need for the following out-of-box features supported by Firebase:

i. Database: Firebase provides a real-time NoSQL database that allows for storing and syncing data
between clients in real-time. This feature is essential for managing user profiles, photos, comments, and
other data in a social media platform.

ii. Storage: Firebase offers cloud storage for storing user-uploaded photos and media files. This feature
ensures scalability and reliability for storing large amounts of multimedia content shared by users.

iii. Real-time communication: Firebase supports real-time data synchronization, enabling real-time
communication features such as live chat, notifications, and updates on user activities. This feature
enhances user engagement and interaction within the social media platform.

iv. Authentication: Firebase provides built-in authentication services with support for various
authentication methods, including email/password, social media sign-in, and anonymous authentication.
This feature ensures secure access control and user authentication for the social media platform.
v. Serverless functions: Firebase offers serverless functions through Cloud Functions for Firebase,
allowing developers to run backend code in response to events triggered by Firebase features or HTTP
requests. This feature enables custom server-side logic for handling complex operations like data
validation, notifications, and background processing.

vi. Content moderation: While Firebase does not offer built-in content moderation features, developers
can integrate third-party moderation services or implement custom moderation logic using serverless
functions to filter and moderate user-generated content based on predefined rules and criteria.

Q3
a) For more control over the response received from the server side, the client application should use
the GraphQL API paradigm. GraphQL allows clients to specify exactly what data they need, enabling
more efficient data fetching and reducing over-fetching or under-fetching of data. With GraphQL, clients
can retrieve data from multiple sources in a single request and define the structure of the response,
providing more flexibility and control compared to traditional REST APIs.

b) In this case, the number of API endpoints needed depends on the desired functionality. At a
minimum, the following endpoints might be required:

● Get all songs

● Get song by ID

● Get all playlists

● Get playlist by ID

● Get all users

● Get user by ID

● Insert song

● Update song

● Delete song

● Insert user

● Update user

● Delete user

c) API query to return all details of a specified song:

bash
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query {

song(id: 2) {

id

title

artist

genre

duration

releaseDate

Sample response:

json

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"id": 2,

"title": "Stairway to Heaven",

"artist": "Led Zeppelin",

"genre": "Rock",

"duration": 480,

"releaseDate": "1971-11-08"

d) API query to generate the response with the specified structure:

bash

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query {

playlists {

id

user {

firstName

lastName

song {

title

artist

duration

Sample response:

json

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"playlist_id": 1,

"user_name": "Soma Raj",

"song_title": "In the Night",

"artist": "The Weeknd",

"duration": 240

},

"playlist_id": 2,

"user_name": "Ganesg MK",

"song_title": "Shape of You",

"artist": "Ed Sheeran",

"duration": 235

},

"playlist_id": 3,

"user_name": "Lakshmi K",

"song_title": "Billie Jean",

"artist": "Michael Jackson",

"duration": 294

e) Supporting object's structure required on the server side to send the response in part (d) would
involve fetching data from the playlists table and joining it with the users and songs tables based on the
relationships defined in the database schema. The server-side code would then format the resulting data
into the specified JSON structure before sending the response.

f) To support insert/update/delete operations on songs and users, the following API endpoints could be
implemented:

● Insert song: POST /songs

● Update song: PUT /songs/{id}

 ● Delete song: DELETE /songs/{id}

● Insert user: POST /users

● Update user: PUT /users/{id}

● Delete user: DELETE /users/{id}

Each endpoint would handle the corresponding CRUD operation on the database tables for songs and
users, ensuring data integrity and security through appropriate authentication and authorization
mechanisms.

Q4
a) If the client application wants to have more control over the response received from the server side,
the API paradigm that should be used for API development is GraphQL. GraphQL allows clients to request
only the data they need, enabling more efficient and flexible data fetching. With GraphQL, clients can
specify the structure of the response, reducing over-fetching or under-fetching of data compared to
traditional REST APIs.

b) In this case, only one API endpoint is defined /songs/{id}. However, considering the requirements of a
music streaming service, additional endpoints might be needed for functionalities such as:

● Listing all songs

● Searching for songs by title, artist, or genre

● Creating playlists

● Adding songs to playlists

● Managing user accounts (registration, authentication, etc.)

So, at least five additional API endpoints might be needed in this case.

c) API query to return all details of a specified song:

bash

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GET https://api.music.com/v1/songs/{id}

Sample response:

json
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"id": 1,

"title": "Shape of You",

"artist": "Ed Sheeran",

"genre": "Pop",

"release_date": "2017-01-06",

"duration": 235

d) API query to update the information of a song:

bash

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PUT https://api.music.com/v1/songs/{id}

Request body:

json

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"title": "New Title",

"artist": "New Artist",

"genre": "New Genre",

"release_date": "2022-05-20",

"duration": 300

}
Sample response:

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"message": "Successfully updated the information of the song"

e) Supporting object's structure required on the server side to send the response in part (d) would
involve handling the PUT request to update the song information in the database. After updating the
song information, the server would send a response confirming the successful update.

f) To support insert/update/delete operations on songs and users, additional API endpoints could be
implemented:

● Insert song: POST /songs

● Update song: PUT /songs/{id}

● Delete song: DELETE /songs/{id}

● Insert user: POST /users

● Update user: PUT /users/{id}

● Delete user: DELETE /users/{id}

Each endpoint would handle the corresponding CRUD operation on the database tables for songs and
users, ensuring data integrity and security through appropriate authentication and authorization
mechanisms.