A redesigned and scalable Rest API using:

• Express.js
• PostgreSQL
• NGINX
• PM2
• dotenv

Deployed on AWS EC2 instances, and stress-tested with:

• K6
• Loader.io

To run the node server locally:

• Clone this repo
• npm install to install project dependencies
• Install PostgreSQL and configure per instructions below
• Update the .env.example file

• run npm install to install dependencies

The following instructions were used for installing and configuring Postgres v14 on both Ubuntu 20.04 and macOS systems.

The needs of this REST API required the database to return a nested object to the front-end. PostgreSQL is an open source object-relational database, and is known for its reliability and performance. The software is capable of performing aggregate functions that were necessary for the API's /meta endpoint.

• Official Documentation (v14)

• apt, also known as apt-get, is a package handler for Ubuntu
• The following commands will update the package lists that are configured inside /etc/apt/sources.list

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Confirm you want to continue by entering y when prompted.

• Or, if you prefer to breeze past the confirmation dialogs, use the -y option:

sudo apt update -y && sudo apt upgrade -y

sudo apt install postgresql

Confirm you want to continue by entering y when prompted.

sudo systemctl status postgresql

Likewise, to start the service:

sudo systemctl start postgresql

And to stop the service:

sudo systemctl stop postgresql

• Follow the instructions on the Homebrew site.

• Helpful instructions are available here 🙏

To start the service with Homebrew and automatically enable launch at login:

brew services start postgresql

Check the status of your installed Homebrew services:

brew services list

To stop the service:

sudo systemctl stop postgresql

• For a full list of available Homebrew commands:

brew services -h

• Official PostgreSQL Download Page

sudo -u postgres psql

You should see in your terminal :

postgres=#

CREATE DATABASE your_database;

Note the trailing semicolons in SQL code!

The semicolon is often, though not always, used in SQL code as a statement terminator.

Wrap your chosen password in single quotes:

CREATE USER your_username WITH PASSWORD 'password';

If this was successful, you should see CREATE ROLE in the terminal.

GRANT ALL TO your_username ON your_database;

More Official PostgreSQL resources

Getting Started With PostgreSQL DOCS

Basic SQL commands in PostgreSQL to get you started:

• \q - Exit psql

• \l or \l+ - List databases

• \dt or dt+ - List tables

• \c + <your_database> to change to a different database

• Press q to close a command menu if the terminal displays a : or (END)

• From the terminal of your PostgreSQL server, run:

psql postgres -f ./pg_reviews_etl.sql

• Transferring from .CSV files to a temporary table first, as type TEXT, is significantly faster, but does require more RAM. Once the file(s) are loaded into PostgreSQL, they are parsed with data type constraints and foreign keys and indexes are added. The temporary tables are dropped to free up memory space before proceeding to the next file.

• I used SCP to send .CSV files to my virtual machine instance. I deployed on AWS EC2 t2.micro This API is designed to be scale-agnostic and will work with any cloud service running Ubuntu Server 20.04.

... SSH into the remote machine, install node, etc...

• npm start Runs the Express app server using nodemon

proxy_cache_path /var/cache/nginx levels=1:2 keys_zone=myzone:10m
loader_threshold=300 loader_files=200;

upstream reviews_api {
  server  11.111.111.111:3000/;
  server  2.22.222.222:3000/;
  server  3.33.333.333:3000/;
}

server {
  listen  80;
  listen  [::]:80;

  proxy_cache myzone;
  proxy_cache_valid 5m;

  location / {
    proxy_pass  http://reviews_api;
  }
}

  /reviews/

  GET /reviews/&product_id=12345

  GET /reviews/&product_id=12345&sort=date&count=10

Returns metadata for a current project

  GET /reviews/meta:product_id

{
  "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"
    },
    // ...
}

  POST /reviews

  [
    "https://link.to/photo1.jpg",
    "https://link.to/photo2.jpg",
    // ...
  ]

  PUT /reviews/:review_id/helpful

  PUT /reviews/:review_id/report

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