System Design Interview Question: Design URL Shortener

This post covers the system design of a URL shortener tool like TinyURL or Bitly, including functional and non-functional requirements, database design, URL shortener service implementation, high-level architecture components, and security considerations. The system needs to handle 1000 writes per second and at least 10,000 reads per second for a projected growth of 315 billion unique URLs over ten years. The system employs REST APIs, NoSQL databases for high performance, caching layers like Redis for low latency, and replication and sharding strategies for scalability and fault tolerance.