Diseño de un servicio que integre autenticación

What is the objective of the second challenge of this course?

The second challenge of the course focuses on the creation of a completely isolated authentication service. This challenge arises after the design and implementation of the reading service. The main objective is to abstract the authentication process as a separate service to enable system and business scalability. It is critical that participants develop a design document detailing the implementation of this service and how it should operate efficiently.

Why should the authentication service be separated?

Separating the authentication service is crucial for a number of strategic and scalability reasons:

• One Service, Multiple Usages: A separate authentication service allows you to verify whether a user is authorized to perform certain actions, such as uploading reviews, efficiently without replicating code across different services.

• Business scalability: By separating services, the business can grow and adapt to new needs such as offering exclusive reviews to registered users or rewarding users with special access.

• Simplified maintenance: Having a single place to manage and update the authentication process reduces errors and facilitates the implementation of future changes.

How would the authentication service be integrated into existing systems?

Integrating a standalone authentication service is an excellent way to modernize and make a system more robust. A general way to achieve this integration is described below:

1. External authentication request: Upon receiving a request in the system, either through an Azure Function or Lambda Function, this can bind to the authentication service to verify the validity of the user.

2. User verification: The service will evaluate the token or credential provided and return a positive or negative authentication response.

3. Response-Based Action Flow: If the user is authenticated, the system will proceed; otherwise, it will block actions such as posting reviews.

4. Future-proofing: The service allows to adapt to potential business changes, such as offering premium content under certain access conditions.

What are the benefits of abstracting authentication into a separate service?

Abstracting the authentication service provides multiple benefits from both a technical and business perspective, including:

• Ease of Scalability: Systems can grow in line with the business, allowing the addition of functionality without major technical effort.

• Error Reduction: Minimizes potential discrepancies or errors in authentication implementation by centralizing control in a single service.

• Customization and Flexibility: Offers the opportunity to design systems that adapt to different types of users, allowing features such as access to exclusive content only to authenticated users.

This challenge not only invites participants to develop technical skills, but also to think strategically about system scalability and efficiency. It remains as a task to investigate tools and methodologies to implement this authentication system, with the certainty that this experience will be preparatory for future challenges in the industry.