Backend Development, Frontend Development, Mobile App Development, Web Development

WiMatch

WiMatch is a Caribbean-owned Social Network App

Overview

This case study focuses on the development of a social media application using React Native for the frontend, Laravel framework for the backend, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) EC2, S3, and CloudFront for hosting and content delivery. The purpose of the app is to provide users with a platform to connect, share, and interact with others through posts, comments, likes, and other social media features.

Problem Statement

Need for a social media application that provides users with a platform to connect, share, and interact with others through posts, comments, likes, and other social media features. The application should be scalable, performant, and capable of handling a large user base. Additionally, the need for a robust backend framework, seamless frontend development, and reliable cloud infrastructure to host and deliver the application’s content is also a key challenge to be addressed.

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Strategy & approach

Requirements Gathering: The initial phase involved gathering requirements from the client, which included features like user registration and authentication, profile creation, post creation and sharing, commenting, liking, and following other users. The app was expected to handle a large user base with high scalability and performance.

Technology Selection: React Native, a popular cross-platform mobile development framework, was chosen for building the frontend due to its ability to deliver native-like experiences on both iOS and Android platforms. Laravel, a powerful PHP framework with MongoDB and MySQL as databases, was selected for the backend due to its robustness, flexibility, and ease of development.

Architecture Design: The application’s architecture was designed to follow a client-server model. The React Native frontend communicates with the Laravel backend through RESTful APIs. The backend handles data storage, retrieval, and business logic, while the frontend focuses on presenting data and user interactions.

Backend Development: The Laravel framework was used to develop the backend of the application. Laravel provides a set of tools and components for rapid application development, making it suitable for building scalable web applications. The backend handles user authentication, manages user profiles, stores and retrieves posts and comments, and manages relationships between users.

Frontend Development: The React Native framework was utilized to develop the frontend of the application. React Native allows developers to build mobile applications using JavaScript and provides a rich set of pre-built components and libraries. The frontend was responsible for displaying user feeds, profiles, posts, and enabling user interactions like commenting and liking.

AWS Infrastructure Setup: Amazon Web Services (AWS) was chosen as the cloud platform to host the application. AWS EC2 instances were provisioned to host the backend server, providing scalability and high availability. AWS S3 was used to store user-uploaded media files, such as profile pictures and post images. CloudFront, AWS’s content delivery network (CDN), was utilized to ensure fast and efficient content delivery to users across different regions.

Deployment and Testing: The backend server was deployed on the AWS EC2 instance, while the frontend React Native app was packaged and distributed through app stores for iOS and Android. Continuous integration and automated testing were implemented to ensure the stability and quality of the application.

Performance Optimization: To enhance the performance of the application, various techniques were employed. Content delivery through CloudFront reduced latency by caching frequently accessed resources. AWS auto-scaling capabilities ensured that the backend server scaled up or down based on the load to handle increased user traffic effectively.

Maintenance and Updates: Regular maintenance and updates were performed to address bug fixes, security enhancements, and new feature additions. Monitoring tools were utilized to track system health, application performance, and user engagement to continuously improve the app.