Review a Web Application Architecture
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This question evaluates system design competencies such as scalability, reliability, fault tolerance, database architecture, load balancing, external dependency management, and observability, and is categorized under System Design.
You are given a high-level architecture diagram for a web application:
Client/Web App -> DNS -> Load Balancer -> Application Service -> Database
The application service also calls an external third-party API.
Review this architecture and identify potential issues. Discuss likely bottlenecks, reliability risks, and missing safeguards. In particular, consider service replicas, load balancing, database scaling, downstream external API rate limits, failure handling, and observability. Propose concrete improvements to make the system more scalable and resilient.
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