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Instagram is a popular photo and video sharing social networking platform that allows users to take photos and videos, apply filters, and share them on their profile or with their followers. As of 2021, Instagram had over 1 billion monthly active users, making it one of the most widely used social media platforms in the world.
The architecture of Instagram is designed to support the platform's high volume of user engagement and media content, as well as its rapid growth and global scale. At a high level, Instagram's architecture can be divided into three main components: the front-end, the back-end, and the infrastructure.
This article gives you the basic overview of the underlying technologies used by the social media giant.
Front end:
The front-end of Instagram is the user-facing part of the platform, which includes the mobile apps and the web interface. The mobile apps, which are available for iOS and Android devices, are developed using native programming languages such as Swift for iOS and Java for Android. The web interface, which can be accessed through a web browser, is developed using web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Back end:
The back-end of Instagram is the server-side part of the platform, which handles business logic and data storage. The back-end is implemented using a variety of programming languages and frameworks, such as Python, Django, and Cassandra. The back-end is responsible for tasks such as handling user requests, processing and storing media content, and generating recommendations for users.
The infrastructure of Instagram refers to the hardware and software systems that support the platform's operations. Instagram uses a combination of on-premises and cloud-based infrastructure, with the majority of its data and services hosted on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud platform. Instagram's infrastructure includes a variety of systems and tools, such as load balancers, cache servers, databases, and monitoring and analytics tools.
One key aspect of Instagram's architecture is its focus on scalability and reliability. To support its large and growing user base, Instagram has implemented a number of strategies to ensure that its systems can handle the high volume of traffic and data. These include the use of sharding, which involves dividing data and workloads across multiple servers, and the use of caching, which helps to reduce the load on the back-end by storing frequently accessed data in memory.
Another important aspect of Instagram's architecture is its use of microservices. Rather than building a monolithic application, Instagram has adopted a microservices approach, which involves breaking the platform down into a collection of small, independent services that communicate with each other through APIs. This allows for greater flexibility and scalability, as different services can be developed and deployed independently.
Third Party tools:
In addition to the core components of its architecture, Instagram also uses a variety of third-party tools and services to support its operations. These include tools for analytics and reporting, such as Google Analytics and Mixpanel, as well as services for user authentication, such as Facebook Login. Instagram also utilizes a number of open-source tools and libraries, such as Cassandra and Memcached, to support its infrastructure and back-end operations.
In summary, the architecture of Instagram is designed to support the platform's high volume of user engagement and media content, as well as its rapid growth and global scale. Instagram's architecture includes a front-end implemented using mobile apps and a web interface, a back-end implemented using a variety of programming languages and frameworks, and an infrastructure built on a combination of on-premises and cloud-based systems. Instagram has also adopted a microservices approach and utilizes a variety of third-party tools and services to support its operations.