Student Research Project Management System...Database Schema (Implementation) 7 • Implement with Django ORM (Object Relational Mapping) • Many-to-many determine relation on weak

A COMP8755 Project - presented by Dajie Yang (u6513788)Supervised by Dr Peter Strazdins

Research School of Computer Science - Australia National University

Student Research Project Management System

Back-end & Deployment

Background• Single page application v.s. multi-page application

– Much shorter to no loading time– Render on client side to render on server side– Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

• Decouple web application– Server send raw data, client render it on receive– Parallel development– Isolate bugs to one side– Much more easy to test– More scalability

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Background (cont.)

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• Representational state transfer (REST) API as web service– Access and manipulate textual representations

(often in JSON) of resources– Use HTTP method to interact with the API– URL as API entries

• Continuous integration / continuous delivery– Merging works as often as possible– Perform all test on every push– Automatic pipeline for build, test, and deploy

Background (cont.)• Dockerization / Containerization

– OS-level virtualization, share host system’s kernel– Environment / dependency problem free– Portability– Easy management– Efficiency– Security

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Normal Workflow

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• Looks simple• Lots of

implications• Serious

permission issues

Database Schema (Design)

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Database Schema (Implementation)

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• Implement with Django ORM (Object Relational Mapping)• Many-to-many determine relation on weak entity

– Django ORM does not even support weak entity– Modify to diamond shape relation

Why Django• Mostly, for convenient

– Team member background– Learning curve– Documentation & Tutorial– Django ORM– Just enough performance

• Django REST Framework– RESTful API don’t need to render HTML page– DRF provide a convenient way to quickly create API– Documentation– Browsable API support

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Layered Architecture in Back-end• Database Model

– Create / update– Query

• Business Logic– Permission checking– Data manipulation– Create database transaction

• API Entry– HTTP methods– Data validation

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API Entries• <base url>/api/

– accounts/• users/• token/• token/refresh/• login/• logout/

– research_mgt/• users/

– <id>/set_course_convener/– <id>/set_formal_supervisor/

• courses/• assessment-templates/• contracts/

– export_csv– <id>/print/– <id>/submit/– <id>/approve/– <id>/supervise/

» approve/– <id>/assessments/– <id>/assessments/<id>/examine/

» approve/

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Authentication• Authentication back-end

– Support existing ANU credential login through ANU LDAP service

– Automatic user information popping from ANU LDAP– Also have own user database to support external

• Token authentication & session authentication

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Request Cycle

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Permissions• Check permission on every single API entry• Ensure the pre-condition and post-condition must be met• Different permission for different user• Restricted query for different user• AssessmentExamineViewSet as an example:

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• ContractViewSet as an example:– Superuser sees all contracts– Convener sees all was submitted contracts– Other users, only display contracts that they involve

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Notifications & Action Logs

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Testing & Continuous Integration• Unit test for individual API• Integration test for the

entire workflow• 92% coverage• 160+ pipelines with 66%

success ratio

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Deployment with docker

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Reference• Token Authentication: The Secret to Scalable User

Management• Docker vs Kubernetes – What Is the Difference?

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Thank you

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