Services Communication Design

TL;DR The plan is to use protobuf for the format. Message calls should be made with gRPC when the client wants a response. High level messages should also be published to the bus. Message calls (events) that don't require a response can just be published to the bus.

There are 3 parts to consider:

Messaging format
Client calls that require a response - RPC
Publishing events - BUS

Messaging Format

The message format must be statically typed, binary, good adoption and have RPC integration.

Protobuf V3 is recommended because it is a mature message format. It is fast to decode and contains all the information required to be decoded. Protobuf is statically typed, has validations and can be used internally and externally. Protobuf can be used wit gRPC and with a message bus.

Alternatives and why they are not suitable

JSON

Does not contain the information required to decode the message
Does not work well with statically typed languages
Not binary
No RPC integaretion (only error prone - JSON over HTTP/1.x)

Apache thrift

Documentation isn't as good as protobuf
Doesn't use HTTP/2

Cap'n Proto

Flatbuffer

Low adoption
Design for games

Message Pack

Only a bit better than JSON
Not statically typed
No RPC

Apache Avro

Low adoption
Bad documentation
Not statically typed

BSON

Not worth mentioning
Sorry.

Client calls that require a response -RPC

why is this required
requirements
recommendations

Publishing events - BUS

why is this required
requirements
recommendations

Protobuf V3 is one of the most mature message formats. It works well with statically typed languages and is fast to decode. Other formats like JSON do not contain the information required to decode the message. Protobuf is statically typed, has validations and can be used internally and externally. Protobuf can be used wit gRPC and with a message bus.

Protobuf is extended by Google's gRPC, once the data structure has been defined, gRPC generates code that can read and write the data on a variety of streams in a variety of languages. gRPC allows for streaming because it uses HTTP/2

These languages are supported: C, C++, Java, Go, Node.js, Python, Ruby, Objective-C, PHP and C#.

For more info: https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/

Example:

message Person {
  required int32 id = 1;
  required string name = 2;
  optional string email = 3;
}

Service calls

Service calls are different from communication over a bus. A client makes a call to a specific service and knows what to expect in response. This method is very simple to implement and is a good way to start implementing small services. Google's gRPC implementation is faster than JSON over HTTP and saves battery life on mobile clients. gRPC has tooling to generate code to communicate between client and server.

For more info: http://www.grpc.io/

Example

message HelloRequest {
  string greeting = 1;
}

message HelloResponse {
  string reply = 1;
}

service HelloService {
  rpc SayHello(HelloRequest) returns (HelloResponse);
}

Full working example:

# in terminal 1
# make sure docker is ready to go
git clone [email protected]:brainly/srv-question.git
cd srv-question
./script/build
./script/go go run main.go

# in terminal 2
# make sure docker is ready to go
git clone [email protected]:brainly/dummy-question-client.git
cd dummy-question-client
./script/build
./script/go go run main.go any-uuid-param

Failed contenders

Events on a Bus

...

23inhouse/service-communication.md