Architecture Overview

Let's explore the architecture of our restaurant review platform, examining how different components work together to create a robust system for restaurant discovery and reviews.

System Components

Our architecture consists of four main components:

1. Frontend (Next.js)

   • Provides the user interface
   • Handles client-side interactions
   • Communicates with backend via REST API
   • While not the focus of our implementation, code will be provided if you wish to run it

2. Backend (Spring Boot)

   • Core of our implementation
   • Processes business logic
   • Manages data flow between frontend and persistence layer
   • Handles authentication and authorization
   • Exposes REST API endpoints

3. Elasticsearch

   • Serves as our persistence layer
   • Stores all primary data
   • Provides advanced search capabilities

4. Keycloak Server

   • Manages authentication and user management
   • Implements OAuth 2 and OpenID Connect standards
   • Integrates with Spring Security
   • Handles user creation and management

Development Environment

Our development environment will utilize Docker to run both Elasticsearch and Keycloak:

• Docker Compose will be used to orchestrate these services
• This approach simplifies the development process
• Allows for consistent environment setup

Technical Considerations

While this architecture involves some trade-offs, particularly in using Elasticsearch as our primary data store, it offers several advantages:

• Advanced search capabilities out of the box
• Geospatial search features
• Flexible schema for storing restaurant and review data
• Powerful text analysis for review content

Architecture Diagram

Summary

• Frontend uses Next.js to handle UI and client-side interactions
• Backend uses Spring Boot for business logic and API endpoints
• Elasticsearch stores data and enables advanced search features
• Keycloak manages authentication using OAuth 2 and OpenID Connect