A brief history of Groupon infrastructure, insights about A/B testing and a close look at one Groupon's web-services "Urgency Messaging". Urgency Messaging Java-based web-service brings real-time views and purchases data to Groupon's customers by means of technologies such as Apache Kafka, Apache Storm and RESTfull APIs.

1. Behind the scenes
Bernardino Frola
19 December 2016
JavaScript & NodeJS
community Salerno

3. 2008

8. 2010

9. 2010

11. Node.js app
Homepage
Node.js app
Deal page
Node.js app
Checkout page
Routing layer

12. 2010

13. 2013

14. 2015

15. Product lifecycle

17. PRD
Product management Graphical Design

18. PRD
Product management
Design
Development

19. A/B experiment
Treatment 1

20. A/B experiment
Treatment 2
Winning treatment
Rolled out Mid-2016

22. New deal page re-design, natively includes new UMS features
End of 2016

23. Deal page design to match mobile design

24. Under the hood
Urgency messaging

25. UMS API
Inventory
service
Deal Page
Real-time
events service
Configuration
client
Localization
service
Groupon API
Cache
A/B experiments
client

26. UMS API
Deal Page
Real-time
events service
Groupon API
Cache
Datastore
Clickstream
Kafka
Storm

27. UMS API
Deal Page
Real-time
events service
Groupon API
Cache
{
timeBucket: 2016-05-01-16H,
timeGranularity: HOURLY
event: VIEW,
count: 1
},
...
{
timeBucket: 2016-05-02-14H,
timeGranularity: HOURLY
event: PURCHASE,
count: 4
},
{
timeBucket: 2016-05-02-15H,
timeGranularity: HOURLY
event: VIEW,
count: 3
}
{
urgencyMessages:
{
dailyViews: 11 viewed today,
static: Limited Time Remaining!
}
}
Process
Build
messages

29. Thanks!
● Keep in contact:
○ Add me (Bernardino Frola) on LinkedIn
● Sources:
○ Groupon infrastructure history: I-Tier: Dismantling the Monolith
○ A/B testing: Stats 101: An Intuitive Guide to A/B Testing by Michael Sussman
○ Screenshots: Groupon.com