• Post Reply Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic
programming forums Java Mobile Certification Databases Caching Books Engineering Micro Controllers OS Languages Paradigms IDEs Build Tools Frameworks Application Servers Open Source This Site Careers Other Pie Elite all forums
this forum made possible by our volunteer staff, including ...
Marshals:
  • Tim Cooke
  • Campbell Ritchie
  • paul wheaton
  • Ron McLeod
  • Devaka Cooray
Sheriffs:
  • Jeanne Boyarsky
  • Liutauras Vilda
  • Paul Clapham
Saloon Keepers:
  • Tim Holloway
  • Carey Brown
  • Piet Souris
Bartenders:

Spring Microservices in Action: intra services communication and GUI

 
Bartender
Posts: 1385
39
IBM DB2 Netbeans IDE Spring Java
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
HI John,

in my humble opinion, two of the most tough aspects to deal with in a microservices based architectures are intra-services communications and developing GUIs.
With respect to first topic, communication, most of documentation I've read is about using REST everywhere. But handling JSON objects isn't so easy with standard Java classes - Json isn't a first class citizen in Java world.
Does Spring offer any out-of-the box facility to helping developer managing JSON object effectively ? What about discover and consuming other microservices API ? And using MTOM as a service bus ?
The second aspect is about exposing GUI Interfaces. Let's suppose we have a complex application build upon several microservices. Should be the GUI (probabily, a web gui) exposed as a separated microservice  ?
Are there any best - practice ?
Are these arguments covered in your book ?

Thanks in advance for your time and answers !
 
Author
Posts: 93
5
  • Likes 1
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Hi Claude,

Thanks for posting.   Let me see if I can answer your questions in order.

1.  Spring supports JSON serialization/deserialization through the Jackson serializer.  Spring will automatically serialize all incoming and outgoing requests from a POJO if you use the@RestController annotation while defining your service routes.  For most of my interfaces, I never have to go beyond using out of the box serialization.  I agree with you that Java JSON manipulation can be pain, especially since dynamic languages like Groovy and Clojure make it so easy.  

2.   In a microservice application, the GUI application is usually deployed as a completely separate application in a separate set of containers.  The GUI should be communicating with the services only through their JSON/REST interfaces.  One of the questions I often encounter is whether or not the GUI should handle orchestration across multiple services.  I usually like to keep my microservice invocations from simple from the GUI.  Thus, if I have to invoke multiple services to complete a transaction, I will wrap the entire process with another microservice so that the GUI only has one service to call.

3.  Service discovery - Microservices do not have the concept of a service discovery like a SOAP-style catalog.  Instead, services like Eureka allow for service discovery by allowing individual service instances to register themselves with a service discovery engine. Then API libraries like Feign and Ribbon allow you to query the service discovery engine using the a service name key.  Service discovery allows you to discover the location of a service, but they tend not to provide the "cataloging" features advertised in SOAP UUID service discovery engines.

4.  MTOM- We use messages quite a bit in our microservices application.  We use Kafka as a backbone for the messages.  Usually we use messages to notify of of important system events and data state changes.  Messaging is an important part of a microservice architecture because it allows us to do complex process independently of on another.  For example, one of the major pieces of functionality that I am working on right now is our upgrade functionality for our customers.  We use messaging heavily to convey the state of the upgrades for the customer and use Kafka, AWS SQS and AWS SWF as the process choregrapher.

My books covers most of this topics and provides hands on examples.  Chapter 2 deals with microservice developement, Chapter 4 service discovery and Chapter 8 on messaging.

I hope thats answers your question.

    Thanks,
        John
 
Enthuware Software Support
Posts: 4907
60
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Very helpful post. Thank you  
 
Claude Moore
Bartender
Posts: 1385
39
IBM DB2 Netbeans IDE Spring Java
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
John, thanks a lot for your reply. Let me say that yours is one of the most clarifying post about microservices I've read so far !
I've another doubt about GUI developing. Would it be OK to have the whole GUI in a single microservices ? The problem is that, of course, you have to expose your GUI on a standard HTTP(s) port; if any service provides its own GUI, I wonder what's the best practice to build various pieces together.
Another question is about service discovery. Ok, with Feign (or similar frameworks) I would be able to discover where a service is; but with respect to a client service perspective, is there any mechanism to build up a service interface stub ?
Thanks again.
 
Consider Paul's rocket mass heater.
reply
    Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic