luisdvalle / auctionsite

Auction website

Auction Website

Application components

This VS Solution includes

• An ASP.NET Core MVC (AuctionApp) application that includes a Front-End component and all the necessary controllers to process Front-End requests.
• A .NET Core Library (AuctionApp.Common) containing infrastructure classes like services, repository, models, etc
• A .NET Core Console (AuctionApp.Engine) application implementing an Azure WebJob that process a time-triggered background task that processes auctions every minute.
• A .NET Core XUnit (AuctionApp.Test) Test Project
• Databases:
  • An Azure Storage Table that is used to persist Auctions and Items data
  • An SQL Server DB to store User Identity data

Note: All .NET Core projects target .NET Core 2.1

Why did I choose these technologies?

• ASP.NET CORE MVC: Even though I have never used this type of .NET project in a real application (not that I wouldn't work), I saw it as a really good option to quickly put together the front-end component with out-of-the-box authentication.
• AZURE WEBJOB: An easy way to implement a background job, triggered every minute to check for auctions and act on them based on their FinishingTime.
• AZURE STORAGE TABLE: Also an easier and quick way to persist data with a flexible and easy to implement schema.

A little bit more about the DBs

The solution will use your local SQL Server to create the DB (AuctionAppDb) and the Identity schema locally. For that you just need to run the following command in the Package Manager Console in Visual Studio

PM> Update-Database

For the Azure Storage Table, the application will connect to a cloud instance (eddappauctionsite) created in Azure so you don't have to deal with Azure Storage Emulator. However, in order to have a look at data contained in that Azure Storage Table instance, I recommend installing the Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer (Install) and connect to the cloud instance with the following connection string.

"ConnectionStrings": {
    "AzureWebJobsStorage": ""
  }

Run the solution locally

Prerequisites

To run this project on your local machine, you will need:

• Visual Studio
• .NET Core 2.1 SDK or higher
• [Optional] Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer (to help visualise the data in the Storage Tables), Install

Running the Solution

1. Remember to recreate the SQL Server DB as shown above.
2. In order to have the full functionality (MVC project + WebJob) running, right-click on the Solution in the Solution Explorer in Visual Studio and choose Properties, then in pop-up window, select Multiple startup projects: and select Start as the action in both AuctionApp and AuctionApp.Engine projects.
3. Press Start in Visual Studio.

Seeding/Test Data

Seeding data for Users and Items is done at Startup and when running the application for the first time. The logic to do this is in the class SeedHelper.cs. Three Users are created with the following details:

• Username: [email protected] | Password: 1234Abcd!
• Username: [email protected] | Password: 1234Abcd!
• Username: [email protected] | Password: 1234Abcd!

Please use any of these credentials to log into the application as five items per user are being pre-populated in the application.

Business Rules and Assumptions

The following business rules have been assumed and implemented in this solution

• There are three main entities in this solution: IdentityUser, Auction and Item.
• An User can have multimple Items.
• An User can initiate an Auction only in their own Items.
• An User can only Bid in Auctions initiated by other Users.
• When an User is searching Auctions, it can only see the Auctions created by other. If the User wishes to see their own Auction, they have to go to My Items and click on Review Auction
• When an Auction is created, it is active for 5 min only. This is to facilitate testing the application and see the progress of an auction in a short period of time.
• The Starting Time of an Auction is at the time the User initiates an Auction and the Finishing Time is 5 minutes later, hence Users cannot choose a Starting Time in the future and the Finishing Time is automatically set by the appication.
• Items have a Price propery defined by the User that owns the Item. This Price is the minimum an Item should be sold for. If all the bids in this item are below that price, the Auction is marked as Finished and the Item as not sold.
• All Times shown in the application are UTC times.

License

• MIT license

Author

Luis Del Valle.