What are the most common back-end architecture best practices?

1 Modularize your code

One of the key principles of back-end development is to modularize your code, meaning to break it down into smaller, reusable, and independent units that can be easily tested, maintained, and updated. Modular code can help you avoid code duplication, improve readability, enhance security, and facilitate collaboration. You can use various tools and techniques to modularize your code, such as functions, classes, packages, modules, libraries, or microservices.

2 Choose the right database

Another crucial aspect of back-end architecture is to choose the right database for your web application, depending on your data model, volume, complexity, and access patterns. There are two main types of databases: relational and non-relational. Relational databases store data in tables and use SQL to query and manipulate data. Non-relational databases store data in various formats, such as documents, key-value pairs, graphs, or columns, and use different query languages or APIs. Each type of database has its own advantages and disadvantages, so you should carefully evaluate your data requirements and trade-offs before deciding.

3 Implement caching

Caching is a technique that allows you to store frequently used or expensive data in a fast and accessible memory, such as RAM, disk, or external service. Caching can significantly improve the performance, scalability, and user experience of your web application, by reducing the load on your database, network, or server, and delivering data faster to the client. However, caching also introduces some challenges, such as data consistency, expiration, invalidation, and synchronization. You should use caching wisely and strategically, and follow some best practices, such as using cache keys, setting cache headers, and using cache middleware.

5 Optimize your performance

Performance is another important factor that affects the quality, usability, and reliability of your web application. Performance can be measured by various metrics, such as response time, throughput, latency, availability, and scalability. To optimize your performance, you should use some tools and methods, such as benchmarking, profiling, monitoring, debugging, and load testing. You should also apply some performance optimization techniques, such as compression, minification, pagination, batching, concurrency, parallelism, and asynchronous programming.

6 Document your API

API stands for Application Programming Interface, and it is a set of rules and specifications that define how different components of your web application communicate and exchange data. Documenting your API is essential for ensuring its usability, maintainability, and compatibility. Documenting your API can help you and other developers understand, test, debug, and integrate your API, as well as provide a clear and consistent reference for your clients and users. You can use various tools and formats to document your API, such as Swagger, Postman, RAML, or Markdown.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?