FlixTube

FlixTube is a distributed, cloud-native video streaming application I built from the ground up to explore microservices architecture. I designed this project as a comprehensive playground for building, deploying, and scaling modern web applications using a variety of technologies and architectural patterns.

🚀 Architecture Overview

I organized the system as several specialized microservices in an Nx monorepo:

Core Services

• gateway (Next.js): The central web frontend and API gateway I built to orchestrate requests to the underlying microservices and provide a unified user experience.
• video-upload (NestJS): Manages video file uploads and initiates the storage process.
• video-streaming (NestJS): Handles efficient video streaming by interfacing with the storage backend.
• metadata (NestJS): Manages video metadata (titles, descriptions, URLs) stored in MongoDB.
• history (NestJS): Tracks user viewing history through event-driven updates.
• azure-storage (NestJS): A wrapper service I wrote for interacting with Azure Blob Storage.
• mock-storage (NestJS): A local filesystem-based storage alternative I use during development.
• db-fixture-rest-api (NestJS): A utility service I built for seeding and managing database fixtures across the ecosystem.

Shared Libraries

• rmq-broker: Standardized RabbitMQ messaging logic I wrote for event-driven communication.
• dynamic-db: Common MongoDB utilities and abstraction layers I extracted for reuse.
• mongodb-fixtures: Shared logic I built for managing test and development data.

Communication Flow

1. Synchronous: Services communicate via REST APIs (orchestrated primarily by the gateway).
2. Asynchronous: Event-driven communication via RabbitMQ for decoupling (e.g., VIDEO_UPLOADED and VIEWED events).

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🛠 Tech Stack

• Frameworks: Next.js, NestJS
• Language: TypeScript
• Monorepo Management: Nx
• Database: MongoDB (Mongoose)
• Messaging: RabbitMQ
• Storage: Azure Blob Storage
• DevOps: Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, GitHub Actions

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🏃 Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Docker & Docker Compose
• Node.js (v20+)
• Nx CLI

Development with Docker

I included a robust utility script for managing the Docker environment.

1. Load utility functions:

   source dev_utility_functions.sh

2. Start all services in development mode:

   up dev

   This will spin up all microservices, MongoDB instances, and RabbitMQ using docker-compose-all-dev.yml.

3. Shut down the environment:

   down dev

Deployment with Kubernetes

I keep Kubernetes manifests in infra/k8s and deployment scripts in the scripts/ directory.

1. Build images:

   ./scripts/build_all_images.sh <platform> <env>

2. Deploy to cluster:

   ./scripts/deploy.sh <deployment_env>

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🔑 Environment Variables

To run the services successfully, the following environment variables need to be configured. I've included example values in the *.env files in the root directory.

Common Variables

• PORT: The port number for the HTTP server (required for all microservices).
• RABBIT: The connection string for RabbitMQ (e.g., amqp://guest:guest@localhost:5672).
• NODE_ENV: The environment mode (development or production).

gateway (Frontend)

• NEXT_PUBLIC_HISTORY_HOST: URL of the history microservice.
• NEXT_PUBLIC_METADATA_HOST: URL of the metadata microservice.
• NEXT_PUBLIC_VIDEO_STREAMING_HOST: URL of the video-streaming microservice.
• NEXT_PUBLIC_VIDEO_UPLOAD_HOST: URL of the video-upload microservice.

video-streaming

• DBHOST: MongoDB connection string.
• DBNAME: Name of the streaming database.
• VIDEO_STORAGE_HOST: Hostname and port of the video storage service (Azure or Mock).

video-upload

• VIDEO_STORAGE_HOST: Hostname and port of the video storage service.

metadata

• METADATA_DBHOST: MongoDB connection string.
• METADATA_DBNAME: Name of the metadata database.

history

• HISTORY_DBHOST: MongoDB connection string.
• HISTORY_DBNAME: Name of the history database.

azure-storage

• STORAGE_ACCOUNT_NAME: Your Azure Storage account name.
• STORAGE_ACCESS_KEY: Your Azure Storage access key.
• STORAGE_CONTAINER_NAME: The name of the blob container (defaults to videos).

mock-storage

• ABSOLUTE_PROJECT_PATH: The absolute path to the project root on your local machine (used for mapping file paths).

db-fixture-rest-api

• DB_FIXTURES_HOST: MongoDB connection string.
• FIXTURES_DIR: Directory where database fixtures are stored.

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📸 Screenshots

Here is FlixTube running locally, demonstrating the core features I built — from video listing to playback and history tracking.

1. Video Upload

2. Video Selection

3. Video List

4. Video Playback

5. Video History

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🗺 Roadmap

I'm continuously evolving this project. Key areas I plan to tackle next:

• Observability: Implement ELK stack, Prometheus, Grafana, and OpenTelemetry.
• Auth: Add Authentication & Authorization (RBAC).
• SQL Integration: Introduce Postgres with Drizzle ORM.
• Security: Static Analysis Security Testing (SAST) with Sonarqube.
• Scaling: Implement elastic scaling for microservices and K8s clusters.
• Messaging: Evaluate replacing RabbitMQ with Kafka.
• Mobile: Develop a mobile gateway and GraphQL support.
• Performance: Integrate Redis for caching.

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📖 Learning Journey

I built this project to gain hands-on experience with:

• Designing microservice boundaries.
• Implementing event-driven architectures.
• Managing a monorepo with Nx.
• Orchestrating deployments with Kubernetes and Terraform.
• Handling cloud-native storage and streaming.

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👏 Acknowledgements

Inspired by the book Bootstrapping Microservices by Ashley Davis, I built this to demonstrate a wholistic view of a microservices ecosystem — from frontend development to event-driven communication and cloud-native orchestration.

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📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

— James Njuguna