Requirements of the Zoom API

Introduction to Zoom API

Video conferencing applications such as Zoom, Skype, and Google Meet connect millions of people worldwide, enabling them to sync up and collaborate while working remotely for better performance, trust, and engagement. Zoom provides its users with various operations, which can be performed through a different set of API endpoints. For example, face-to-face meetings, screen sharing, recording meetings, and so on. However, the design of such an API requires a deep understanding of networks and backend systems. 

In this chapter, we will explore how Zoom meetings are scheduled, and resources are assigned to facilitate a streaming session across the globe. We will also cover the overall architecture and interactions between different components to design and build an efficient video conferencing API like Zoom.

Requirements

Since Zoom offers many features to its customers, we have selected only the important ones to narrow down the scope and complexity of our design problem.

Functional requirements

We will focus on the following features in designing our API.

• Managing meetings: Our API should allow hosts (the organizer of the meeting) to initiate, schedule, update, and delete one-on-one or group meetings.

• Managing participants: Our API should allow hosts to add, remove, and restrict participants.

• Streaming data: Our API should allow participants to share screens and audio/video streams.

• Recording meetings: Our API should allow hosts to record meetings locally or hosted on the cloud.