Design Google Maps
Learn to design a map system similar to Google maps.
Overview
A maps application (like Google Maps or Apple Maps) enables users to find the best possible path to their destination based on the mode of transportation and traffic. It also provides the time required to make the trip.
Individuals and organizations rely on location data to navigate around the world. Individuals can easily find and navigate to new places quickly. In fact, many modern applications rely heavily on maps, such as ride-hailing services, autonomous vehicles, and hiking maps.
In 2022, more than five million businesses used Google Maps. Google provides an API for enterprises to use a map system in their application.
It’s time to showcase your understanding! Challenge yourself and see how well you can identify four different building blocks in Google Maps through our interactive assessment. Several building blocks can be considered for the system design of Google Maps. Recognize these building blocks based on the following requisite functionalities and provide your answers in the AI widget given below:
There is a need to search various locations on the map.
Storing metadata in the format of key-value pairs is essential for efficient data management.
The system should be adept at generating and handling events, and notifying other services when necessary.
To effectively represent road data, the system requires a structured graph format for storing and retrieving information.
Remember, you need to identify the core building blocks and justify their necessity.
Requirements
Before we look at requirements, let’s clarify that we’ll design a system like Google Maps by picking a few key features because actual Google Maps is feature rich and complex.
Let’s list the functional and non-functional requirements of the system under design.
Functional requirements
The functional requirements of our system are as follows.
- Identify the current location: Users should be able to approximate their current location (latitude and longitude in decimal values) on the world map.
- Recommend the fastest route: Given the source and destination (place names in text), the system should recommend the optimal route by distance and time, depending on the type of transportation.
- Give directions: Once the user has chosen the route, the system should list directions in text format, where each item in the list guides the user to turn or continue in a specific direction to reach the destination.
Non-functional requirements
The non-functional requirements of our system are as follows:
- Availability: The system should be highly available.
- Scalability: It should be scalable because both individuals and other enterprise applications, like Uber and Lyft, use Google Maps to find appropriate routes.
- Less response time: It shouldn’t take more than two or three seconds to calculate the ETA and the route, given the source and the destination points.
Note: We’re not getting into the details of how we get the data on roads and layout. Government agencies provide maps, and in some places, Google itself drives mapping vehicles to find roads and their intersection points. Road networks are modeled with a graph data structure, where intersection points are the vertices, and the roads between intersections are the weighted edges.
Challenges
Some ...