Exploring Database Design for a Standard Social Media Application

In the digital age, social media applications have become an integral part of our lives, connecting people from around the world. Behind every successful social media platform lies a well-designed and efficient database structure. In this blog post, we will explore the database design for a standard social media application, considering three functional components: user management, chat functionality, and post interactions.

uml diagram from django-models

Database schema design with explanation:

Functional Requirements

Before Jumping into database design we need to understand what is the requirements/features that a social media application should have,i.e

• User :- User should be able to register, login with their account & should be able to store their data.
• Post :- User should be able to post any media that they want it might be image or video.
• Chat :- A user should have the option to communicate with the other user via message.

This is what we called as Functional Requirements.

1. User Management

user-management schema

User-Data Table

For user management, the "user" table can have the following attributes:

1. id: Unique identifier for each user (primary key).
2. name: User's full name.
3. user_bday: User's date of birth.
4. user_desc: User's description or bio.
5. user_name: User's chosen username (should be unique).
6. user_phone: User's contact phone number.
7. user_pic: File path or reference to the user's profile picture.  

This table will store the basic information of each user, such as their name, date of birth, description, username, phone number, and profile picture. The "id" attribute serves as the primary key to uniquely identify each user in the table.

User-Followers Table

For the "user_follower" table, which represents the relationship between users and their followers/following, it can have the following fields:

1. id: Unique identifier for each entry in the table (primary key).
2. follower: Foreign key referencing the user who is the follower (references user.id).
3. following: Foreign key referencing the user who is being followed (references user.id).

This table establishes a many-to-many relationship between users. Each entry in the "user_follower" table represents a user following another user. The "follower" field references the user who is doing the following, and the "following" field references the user who is being followed. The "id" field serves as the primary key to uniquely identify each entry in the table.

2. Post Management

post management schema

Post-Data Table

For post management, The "Post" table represents a post made by a user which has following attributes:

1. post_id: Unique identifier for each psot(primary key).
2. content: A CharField that stores the textual content of the post..
3. media: A FileField that allows users to upload media (e.g., images, videos) associated with the post.
4. user:  A ForeignKey that references the User who made the post. This establishes a one-to-many relationship between the User and Post tables, where one user can have multiple posts.That mean a single user_id can be associated with multiple posts but single post_id cannot be associated with multiple user_id.
5. likes:  A ManyToManyField that represents the likes on a post. It establishes a many-to-many relationship between the Post and User tables, allowing multiple users to like a post and a user to like multiple posts.

Comment Table

 The "Comment" table represents a comment made by a user on a specific post which has following attributes:

1. comment_id: Primary key for each comment.
2. comment: A CharField that stores the textual content of the comment.
3. created_id: A DateTimeField that indicates the date and time when the comment was created.
4. user:A ForeignKey that references the User who made the comment. A one-to-many relationship between the User and Comment tables, where one user can have multiple comments.Here,a single user_id can associated with multiple comments but a single commet_id cannot be associated with multiple users.
5. post: A post associated with comment which is referring to post table's primary key(foreign_key).This establishes a one-to-many relationship between the Post and Comment tables, where one post can have multiple comments.

By utilizing the "Post" and "Comment" tables, users can create posts, including textual content and optional media. They can also comment on posts made by other users. The tables capture the relationships between users, posts, and comments, enabling features such as tracking likes on posts and associating comments with specific posts.

3. Chat Management

chat-management interaction

Chat Message

For chat management, The "ChatMessage" table represents an individual message within a conversation thread & its attributes are as follows:

1. id: Primary key for each chat mesage.
2. thread: A ForeignKey that references the Thread model. It represents the thread to which the message belongs. 
3. user:  A ForeignKey that references the User model. It represents the user who sent the message.
4. message: A CharField that stores the textual content of the message.
5. timestamp: A DateField that stores the date and time when the message was created

Thread Table

The "Thread" table represents a conversation thread between two users:

1. thread_id: Primary key for each thread.
2. user1: A ForeignKey that references the User model and represents one of the users participating in the conversation.
3. user2: A ForeignKey that references the User model and represents the other user participating in the conversation. 
4. timestamp: A DateField that stores the date and time when the thread was created.

This schema allows for the creation of threaded conversations between two users. The "Thread" model captures the relationship between the two users. The "ChatMessage" model represents individual messages within a conversation, with each message associated with a specific thread and user. The schema provides the necessary structure to organize and retrieve chat messages within the context of a conversation thread.

I have developed a social media web app by considering same database schema & here is the link.

In conclusion, designing a standard production application architecture requires careful consideration of various components and practices. By understanding the client/server request flow, optimizing vertical and horizontal scaling techniques, integrating with external API services and CDN servers, leveraging logging services, and monitoring metrics with alerts, developers can create a robust and efficient architecture. This enables improved load time, decreased latency, enhanced content delivery, proactive issue detection, and effective troubleshooting. By implementing these practices, developers can ensure a scalable, reliable, and high-performing production application architecture that meets the needs of modern applications and delivers a seamless user experience.