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azure
System Design
intermediate
Photo and video social sharing

Instagram Photo Sharing System

Instagram / Meta

Instagram processes hundreds of millions of photo and video uploads daily, each requiring multiple resize operations, filter application, and CDN distribution. This Azure-native architecture separates the upload pipeline (receive → process → store multiple sizes) from the feed pipeline (aggregate → rank → serve). Azure SQL manages follower relationships, while a stories subsystem handles ephemeral 24-hour content with Cosmos DB TTL-based expiry.

Data Flow

Azure CDN
Upload API
Processing Queue
Feed Service
Stories Service
Image Resizer
Photo Storage
Social Graph DB
Feed Cache

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Service Breakdown (9 services)

Other9 services
Azure CDN
  • •Routes application traffic with L7 rules
  • •Supports WAF and SSL offloading
  • •Integrates with backend pools for scaling
Upload API
  • •Exposes backend services through managed API endpoints
  • •Enforces authentication, throttling, and quotas
  • •Provides developer portal and API analytics
Feed Service
  • •Assembles photo feeds from followed accounts
  • •Ranks posts by engagement and recency signals
  • •Supports infinite scroll with cursor-based pagination
Stories Service
  • •Hosts web applications with built-in auto-scaling
  • •Supports deployment slots for blue-green releases
  • •Integrates with Azure DevOps for CI/CD pipelines
Photo Storage
  • •Stores original photos and generated thumbnails
  • •Supports CDN integration for fast global delivery
  • •Manages storage lifecycle for older media
Social Graph DB
  • •Runs managed SQL databases with built-in intelligence
  • •Supports elastic pools for multi-database efficiency
  • •Handles automated patching and geo-replication
Feed Cache
  • •Caches frequently accessed data in-memory
  • •Reduces database round-trips and latency
  • •Supports TTL-based expiration policies
Processing Queue
  • •Provides reliable enterprise message brokering
  • •Supports topics and queue-based messaging
  • •Guarantees at-least-once delivery
Image Resizer
  • •Executes event-driven functions without managing servers
  • •Scales based on event volume with consumption billing
  • •Supports durable functions for stateful workflows

Scaling Strategy

Image processing scales via Service Bus-driven Azure Functions that resize uploads into multiple dimensions in parallel. Blob Storage stores all image variants with Azure CDN edge caching for global delivery. Feed generation uses a pre-computed approach with Redis Cache storing materialized feeds. Azure SQL handles the social graph with read replicas. Stories use Cosmos DB with TTL-based automatic expiry.

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