Generated by Gemini 2:
You're looking to build a multi-tenant web application for museums to manage their media guides. Here's a potential architecture breakdown, focusing on key components and considerations:
I. Core Requirements:
* User Management:
Account creation and authentication for all users (museum administrators, room managers, general users - though the prompt doesn't explicitly mention general users accessing the guides directly, it's worth considering for future expansion).
Role-based access control (RBAC) to manage permissions (e.g., museum admin, room manager).
* Museum Management:
Creation and management of museum profiles (name, description, etc.).
Association of users with specific museums (primarily administrators).
* Media Guide Management:
* Room Management:
Creation and management of rooms within a museum.
Association of media components (text, audio, video, images) with rooms.
Assignment of room managers (users with specific permissions for a room).
* Object Management:
* User Nomination and Permissions:
Mechanism for museum administrators (and possibly room managers, depending on the desired level of control) to nominate other registered users to manage specific rooms and their objects.
Clear definition and enforcement of permissions for different roles at the museum, room, and object levels.
* Media Storage:
II. Architectural Components:
Here's a layered approach to consider:
* Presentation Layer (Frontend):
Technology: React, Angular, Vue.js, or traditional server-rendered
HTML/
CSS/JavaScript.
Responsibility:
User interface for account creation, login, and navigation.
Forms and workflows for managing museums, media guides, rooms, and objects.
Displaying media content to end-users (if applicable).
Handling user interactions and making
API calls to the backend.
Implementing role-based views and functionalities.
* Application Layer (Backend - API):
Technology: Python (Django/Flask), Node.js (Express), Ruby on Rails, Java (Spring), Go.
Responsibility:
Handling
API requests from the frontend.
Authentication and authorization.
Business logic for managing entities (museums, guides, rooms, objects, users, permissions).
Data validation and processing.
Interacting with the Data Access Layer and Media Storage.
Implementing the user nomination and permission management logic.
* Data Access Layer:
Technology: Object-Relational Mapper (ORM) like Django ORM, SQLAlchemy, Sequelize, Hibernate, or a direct database interaction layer.
Responsibility:
Abstracting database interactions from the Application Layer.
Defining data models (schemas) for all entities.
Performing CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations on the database.
Ensuring data integrity.
* Data Storage:
* Media Storage:
* Authentication and Authorization Service:
III. Key Design Considerations:
* Multi-Tenancy:
Database Schema Approach: Each museum's data can be isolated in its own schema within a single database or in separate databases. This provides strong data isolation.
Shared Database with Tenant ID: All museum data resides in the same tables, but each record is associated with a museum_id. This is simpler to manage but requires careful querying and can have implications for data isolation and scalability.
Recommendation: Starting with a shared database with a museum_id is often easier to implement initially. If you anticipate a large number of museums or strict isolation requirements, consider the database schema approach later.
* Role-Based Access Control (RBAC):
Define clear roles (e.g., museum_admin, room_manager).
Associate permissions with each role (e.g., museum_admin can create rooms, room_manager can edit objects in their assigned rooms).
Implement logic in the Application Layer to enforce these permissions based on the logged-in user's role and the context of the action.
* User Nomination and Permission Granting:
Implement a mechanism for authorized users (e.g., museum admins) to nominate other users for specific roles within their museum (e.g., room manager for a specific room).
Store these role assignments and the scope (e.g., user X is a room_manager for room Y in museum Z).
Ensure that the authorization logic checks these specific assignments in addition to general roles.
* Data Relationships:
Clearly define the relationships between entities in your data model (e.g., a museum has many rooms, a room has many objects, an object can have multiple media components). Use foreign keys in a relational database to enforce these relationships.
* API Design:
Use a consistent and well-documented
API (e.g., RESTful
API using JSON).
Implement proper authentication and authorization for all
API endpoints.
Consider versioning your
API to handle future changes.
* Scalability:
Design your application to handle increasing numbers of museums, users, and media content.
Consider using a load balancer for the Application Layer.
Choose scalable database and media storage solutions.
Implement caching mechanisms to improve performance.
* Security:
Implement secure authentication and authorization mechanisms.
Protect against common web vulnerabilities (e.g., SQL injection, XSS).
Securely store user credentials (e.g., using hashing and salting).
Regularly audit your application for security vulnerabilities.
* Testing:
* Deployment:
Choose a suitable deployment environment (e.g., AWS, Google Cloud, Azure).
Implement a CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment) pipeline for automated building, testing, and deployment.
IV. Workflow Example (User Nominating a Room Manager):
* A museum administrator logs into the frontend.
* They navigate to the “Manage Rooms” section for their museum.
* They select a specific room.
* They initiate the “Nominate Manager” action for that room.
* A form appears where they can search for existing users by email or username.
* They select a user and confirm the nomination.
* The frontend sends an API request to the backend (e.g., /api/museums/{museum_id}/rooms/{room_id}/nominate-manager).
* The backend API endpoint:
Authenticates and authorizes the requesting user (must be a museum admin for this museum).
Validates the nominated user exists.
Creates a record in a permissions table or similar structure, associating the nominated user with the room_manager role for the specific room in the specific museum.
Potentially sends a notification to the nominated user.
* The frontend receives a success response and updates the UI.
V. Technology Stack Considerations (Example):
* Frontend: React with TypeScript, Redux/Context API for state management, Material UI/Chakra UI for components.
* Backend: Python with Django REST Framework for the API, PostgreSQL for the database.
* Media Storage: AWS S3 with CloudFront CDN.
* Authentication: Django's built-in authentication or a library like Django Allauth.
* Task Queue (Optional): Celery for background tasks (e.g., processing large media files).
* Containerization: Docker for packaging the application.
* Orchestration: Kubernetes or Docker Compose for managing containers.
VI. Future Considerations:
* Analytics: Track usage of media guides.
* Accessibility: Ensure the platform is accessible to users with disabilities.
* Internationalization (i18n) and Localization (l10n): Support multiple languages.
* Offline Access: Allow users to download media guides for offline use.
* Integration with other museum systems: Collection management systems, ticketing systems, etc.
By carefully considering these architectural components and design principles, you can build a robust and scalable web application to meet the needs of museums for managing their media guides. Remember to iterate and adapt your design as your understanding of the requirements evolves.