Design a Secure PDF Data Room
Design a virtual data room product that enables companies to organize and securely share confidential PDF documents.
The product should offer a user experience similar to a cloud drive, allowing users to:
- Create data rooms.
- Organize PDFs into folders.
- Upload and view documents.
- Invite other organizations to access selected content.
Initially, the system is expected to support only PDF files.
Key Focus Area: Organization-Level Access Control
A critical aspect of this design is robust, organization-level access control. Companies must be able to grant other organizations access to specific data rooms, folders, or individual documents. Permissions, such as "view-only" or "admin," must be consistently enforced across all interactions, including browsing, downloading, viewing, and search operations.
Design Coverage Requirements
Your design should explicitly cover the following areas:
- Core functional requirements.
- Non-functional requirements, including security, availability, scalability, and auditability.
- Major services and storage choices.
- Data model for organizations, users, rooms, folders, documents, and Access Control Lists (ACLs).
- Permission evaluation rules, specifically addressing inheritance and overrides.
- APIs for key operations like creating rooms, uploading PDFs, inviting organizations, and checking access.
- Strategies for securely serving and protecting PDF viewing or downloading.
- Auditing, logging, and monitoring mechanisms.
AI interview prep
Core dilemma
Balancing granular, dynamic, and inherited organization-level access control enforcement with high performance and scalability for document access, while maintaining strict security and auditability.
3 tradeoffs and 3 stress tests locked
Interview prep
Unlock the interviewer X-Ray rubric, tradeoff matrix, stress tests, clarifying questions, and key concepts.
Design a Secure PDF Data Room
Design a virtual data room product that enables companies to organize and securely share confidential PDF documents.
The product should offer a user experience similar to a cloud drive, allowing users to:
- Create data rooms.
- Organize PDFs into folders.
- Upload and view documents.
- Invite other organizations to access selected content.
Initially, the system is expected to support only PDF files.
Key Focus Area: Organization-Level Access Control
A critical aspect of this design is robust, organization-level access control. Companies must be able to grant other organizations access to specific data rooms, folders, or individual documents. Permissions, such as "view-only" or "admin," must be consistently enforced across all interactions, including browsing, downloading, viewing, and search operations.
Design Coverage Requirements
Your design should explicitly cover the following areas:
- Core functional requirements.
- Non-functional requirements, including security, availability, scalability, and auditability.
- Major services and storage choices.
- Data model for organizations, users, rooms, folders, documents, and Access Control Lists (ACLs).
- Permission evaluation rules, specifically addressing inheritance and overrides.
- APIs for key operations like creating rooms, uploading PDFs, inviting organizations, and checking access.
- Strategies for securely serving and protecting PDF viewing or downloading.
- Auditing, logging, and monitoring mechanisms.