TinyURL

• Use cases

• Functional requirements

  • Core

  • Optional

  • Non functional

    • High performance

    • High availability

    • Not predictable

Use cases

• Data analysis like click events, user sources.

• Short url length to fit social media content limit (140 characters).

• Avoid the website is blacklisted by domain name.

Functional requirements

Core

• Shortening: Take a url and return a much shorter url.

• Redirection: Take a short url and redirect to the original url.

Optional

• Custom url: Allow the users to pick custom shortened url.

• Analytics: Usage statistics for site owner.

  • Ex: How many people clicked the shortened url in the last day.

  • What were user locations

• What if two people try to shorten the same URL?

  • Each url can have multiple tiny urls

• URL is not guessable?

  • Yes

• Needs original url validation

  • No

• Automatic link expiration

• Manual link removal

• UI vs API

Non functional

High performance

• 80% latency smaller than 5ms, 99% latency smaller than 20ms, average latency smaller than 10ms.

• Our system is similar to DNS resolution, higher latency on URL shortener is similar to a failure to resolve.

High availability

• It should be high available.

Not predictable

• Short url should be not predictable to avoid hacking and leaking important information.