In software development, the backend is the foundation of applications, handling critical tasks like data management, business logic, and communication with other systems. To ensure the efficiency, dependability, and security of your backend systems, you must follow best practices in a variety of categories.
Following backend best practices can help optimize performance, minimize downtime, and prevent security vulnerabilities in your applications. By implementing practices such as code reviews, automated testing, and regular updates, you can maintain a robust backend that supports the overall functionality of your software.
So, what are the best backend practices? We are attempting to compile several back-end best practices to ensure the smooth operation of your systems.
1. Code Organisation and Structure
Keeping a well-organised and structured codebase is critical for backend development. Use modular design principles to break down complex systems into smaller, more manageable components. This promotes code reuse, improves maintainability, and simplifies debugging. Using design patterns such as MVC (Model-View-Controller) or MVVM (Model-View-Model) can help streamline development workflows and improve code clarity.
Some of the important aspects of the code organisation and structure are as follows:
- Readability and Maintainability: Well-organised code enhances readability and maintainability, making it easier for developers to understand, update, and debug the codebase. Consistent naming conventions, modularization, and clear documentation contribute to improved code comprehension.
- Modular Design: Breaking down the backend code into modular components promotes reusability and encapsulation. This approach simplifies development, facilitates code sharing, and enables teams to work on different modules concurrently.
- Separation of Concerns: Segregating code based on its functionality (e.g., separating business logic from presentation logic) improves the overall architecture and makes the codebase more resilient to changes and updates.
- Version Control and Collaboration: Utilising version control systems such as Git and implementing collaborative platforms like GitHub fosters seamless collaboration among developers. It enables tracking changes, managing code versions, and facilitating team coordination.
- Application of Design Patterns: Leveraging design patterns such as MVC (Model-View-Controller) or MVVM (Model-View-ViewModel) promotes a structured approach to code organisation and supports the separation of concerns.
- Optimising Directory Structure: A well-planned directory structure enhances code organisation by logically grouping related files and resources. This facilitates easy navigation and minimises the effort required to locate specific components.
Before we move on to another aspect of backend best practices, you might need to learn more about backend performance first for a better grasp of the concept. Learn more in our article, “Backend Performance: What It Is and How to Optimise It“.
2. Efficient Database Design
Efficient database design is critical for backend performance and scalability. Normalise your database schema to reduce redundancy and maintain data integrity.
Use indexing wisely to improve query performance, particularly for frequently accessed data. Consider denormalization for read-intensive workloads to improve query execution time. Furthermore, select the appropriate database engine based on your application’s needs, whether relational (e.g., MySQL, PostgreSQL) or NoSQL (e.g., MongoDB, Cassandra).
3. Performance Optimisation
Optimising backend performance is critical to providing a responsive and seamless user experience. Use caching mechanisms to reduce latency and database load.
Implement asynchronous processing for non-blocking operations to improve concurrency and scalability. Profile and analyse your code on a regular basis to effectively identify and address performance bottlenecks. Use profilers and monitoring systems to gain insights into resource utilisation and application behaviour.
4. Security Best Practices
Security is a non-negotiable aspect of backend development, safeguarding sensitive data, and protecting against malicious attacks. The Futurice github post lists several backend security best practices, but here are 5 of the most important:
- Use Docker: However, you still need to follow several security best practises, such as creating unprivileged users inside Docker containers and running binaries using unprivileged users instead of root whenever possible, rebuilding and redeploying your containers with updated libraries and dependencies, and updating (or rebuilding) your Docker hosts with the latest security updates.
- Maintain Your Credentials: Never send credentials unencrypted over a public network. Always use encryption (HTTPS, SSL, etc.).
- Store your secrets carefully: Secrets (passwords, keys, etc.) should never be stored in version control sources! It is very easy to forget they are there, and the project source frequently ends up in multiple locations (developer machines, development test servers, etc.), increasing the risk of an important secret being compromised. The most straightforward way to handle secrets is to store them in a separate file on the servers that require them and ignore them during version control.
- Login Throttling: Set limits on the number of login attempts allowed per client and per unit of time. A user account can be locked for a set amount of time after a certain number of failed login attempts. The goal of these measures is to make online brute-force attacks against usernames and passwords impossible.
- User Password Storage with Hash: A good one-way hash with a good random salt should be used to store passwords whenever possible, which should be most of the time. Not at all, SHA-1 is not a good hash function for this situation. Because hash functions that are made to work with passwords are slower on purpose, offline brute-force attacks take longer and are therefore less likely to work.
5. Scalability and high availability
Designing for scalability and high availability is critical for accommodating growing user bases and maintaining continuous service availability.
Use horizontal scaling techniques like load balancing and auto-scaling to evenly distribute traffic across multiple instances and effectively handle increased demand. Implement fault-tolerant architectures that include redundancy and failover mechanisms to reduce single points of failure and downtime.
Use cloud-based services and infrastructure-as-code tools to automate deployment and provisioning, allowing for rapid scalability and seamless recovery.
6. Error Handling and Logging.
Effective error handling and logging are essential for identifying problems, troubleshooting failures, and ensuring system reliability.
Implement strong error handling mechanisms to gracefully handle exceptional situations and provide meaningful feedback to users. Log pertinent information, such as error messages, stack traces, and contextual data, to aid in root cause analysis and debugging.
Use centralised logging solutions to aggregate and analyse logs from distributed systems, allowing for proactive monitoring and incident response.
7. Testing and Continuous Integration
Adopting a comprehensive testing strategy and continuous integration practices are critical for ensuring code quality, dependability, and maintenance. Write unit tests to validate the functionality of individual components, as well as integration tests to ensure that modules interact properly.
Automate test execution and integration with CI/CD pipelines to detect defects early in the development lifecycle and streamline the release process. Integrate performance, security, and regression testing into your CI/CD pipeline to validate system behaviour under different conditions and reduce regression risks.
That is all you need to know about backend best practices. To optimize your backend, you must be aware of the key metrics to monitor. Learn more about that in our article, “Backend Analytics. Understanding the Core Elements of System Optimisation“.
Conclusion
To sum up, building secure, scalable, and reliable apps requires a strict commitment to backend best practices. For backend systems to be dependable, responsive, and resilient, developers must prioritise code organisation, efficient database design, performance optimisation, security measures, scalability, error handling, logging, testing, and continuous integration.
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