Beyond JSON: Improving Inter-app Communication

A talk I gave at BaRuCo/Full Stack Fest 2015 about improving inter-app communication by using proctol buffers and non-http protocols.

Transcript

1. BEYOND JSON
   @aq / Full Stack Fest / Sept 2015
   

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2. I’m @aq
   HELLO!
   

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3. beatsryetypes.com
   @beatsryetypes
   

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4. CatskillsConf.com Oct 23-25, 2015
   

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5. Ruby, JS, Go
   Performance
   Consulting
   quirkey.com/hireme
   

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7. Because there are more apps
   Inter-app Communication is
   more important than ever
   

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8. HONEY, I
   SHRUNK
   THE SERVICE
   

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9. To avoid misunderstanding
   An introduction to terms
   

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10. The transportation mechanism for delivering
    information from one application to another.
    Protocol
    

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11. Shorthand for Serialization Format, the specific
    way data is encoded and structured for
    delivery between applications.
    Format
    

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12. The shape of the data and how it is delivered.
    Format over Protocol
    

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13. Format over Protocol
    JSON over HTTP
    

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14. A very Brief History of
    Inter-App Communication
    

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15. Pre-Internet Days
    

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16. Punchcards
    over
    Sneakernet
    

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17. Early Internet Days
    

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18. XML
    over
    HTTP
    

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19. Nowish
    

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20. JSON
    over
    HTTP
    

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21. The New Default
    JSON over HTTP for
    ERRRRYTHING
    

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22. Because.
    But, WHY?
    

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23. It’s EZ
    

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24. Break it down
    • Human Readable/Writable (Well
    certain humans)
    • Parsers/Clients for every Language
    • Relatively Fast
    • Has a few explicit types (String, #, Bool)
    • Compared to XML/SOAP, Relatively
    Compact
    

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25. Like most things in our world.
    Well, It’s EZ at first.
    

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26. It always starts small.
    

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27. {
    "id": "1234",
    "title": "Beyond JSON"
    }
    

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28. {
    "id": "1234",
    "title": "Beyond JSON”,
    "author": “Aaron Quint”,
    “created_at": “2015-08-01”
    }
    

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29. {
    "id": "1234",
    "title": "Beyond JSON”,
    "author": {
    "name": “Aaron Quint”,
    "title": “Chief Scientist”
    },
    “favorites": [
    {
    "id": “123”,
    “user”: “Kat Howard”
    }
    ],
    “created_at": “2015-08-01”
    }
    

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30. {
    "id": "1234",
    "title": "Beyond JSON”,
    "author": {
    "name": “Aaron Quint”,
    "title": “Chief Scientist”
    “company": {
    "id": "1334”,
    "name": “Quirkey NYC”
    }
    },
    “favorites": [
    {
    "id": “123”,
    “user”: {
    “id”: “152”,
    "name": “Kat Howard”,
    }
    }
    ],
    “created_at": “2015-08-01”
    }
    

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31. View Slide

32. What we want
    • Works well in many languages
    • Relatively Fast
    • Relatively Compact
    • Has explicit types
    • +Handles Change Well
    

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33. What if I told you this
    already exists?
    

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34. that’s protobufs to you
    Protocol Buffers!
    

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36. Procotol?!
    Buffers?!
    

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37. package app;
    message Meta {
    required string key = 1;
    required string value = 2;
    }
    message Image {
    optional string id = 1;
    optional bytes body = 2;
    optional string extension = 3;
    optional uint64 size = 4;
    optional uint32 width = 5;
    optional uint32 height = 6;
    optional string filename = 7;
    repeated Meta meta = 8;
    }
    message Request {
    required string command = 1;
    required Image image = 2;
    repeated Meta transform = 3;
    optional bool returnbody = 4;
    }
    message Response {
    required string status = 1;
    required string message = 2;
    optional Image image = 3;
    }
    app.proto
    app/*.pb.rb
    app.pb.go
    protoc —ruby_out
    protoc —go_out
    

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38. image = App::Image.new(:id => "123")
    bytes = image.encode #=> bytes
    image = App::Image.decode(bytes)
    image.id #=> 123
    package app;
    message Meta {
    required string key = 1;
    required string value = 2;
    }
    message Image {
    optional string id = 1;
    optional bytes body = 2;
    optional string extension = 3;
    optional uint64 size = 4;
    optional uint32 width = 5;
    optional uint32 height = 6;
    optional string filename = 7;
    repeated Meta meta = 8;
    }
    message Request {
    required string command = 1;
    required Image image = 2;
    repeated Meta transform = 3;
    optional bool returnbody = 4;
    }
    message Response {
    required string status = 1;
    required string message = 2;
    optional Image image = 3;
    }
    image := app.Image{Id: proto.String("123")}
    bytes, err := proto.Marshal(image)
    if err != nil {
    // ...
    }
    newImage := &app.Image{}
    err = proto.Unmarshal(bytes, newImage)
    if err != nil {
    // ...
    }
    newImage.GetId() #=> "123"
    

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39. package app;
    message Meta {
    required string key = 1;
    required string value = 2;
    }
    message Image {
    optional string id = 1;
    optional bytes body = 2;
    optional string extension = 3;
    optional uint64 size = 4;
    optional uint32 width = 5;
    optional uint32 height = 6;
    optional string filename = 7;
    repeated Meta meta = 8;
    }
    message Request {
    required string command = 1;
    required Image image = 2;
    repeated Meta transform = 3;
    optional bool returnbody = 4;
    }
    message Response {
    required string status = 1;
    required string message = 2;
    optional Image image = 3;
    }
    explicit types
    repeated fields
    unique tags for
    backwards and forwards
    compatibility
    required fields
    nested types
    

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40. ====================
    Sizes
    beefcake: 23b
    protobuf: 23b
    json: 71b
    yajl: 71b
    msgpack: 54b
    -------------------------------------------------
    encode/beefcake 36.915k (± 5.1%) i/s - 184.808k
    encode/protobuf 34.186k (± 6.7%) i/s - 172.462k
    encode/json 75.959k (± 8.3%) i/s - 378.367k
    encode/yajl 81.132k (±11.4%) i/s - 407.199k
    encode/msgpack 74.240k (±38.1%) i/s - 316.250k
    Comparison:
    encode/yajl: 81132.2 i/s
    encode/json: 75959.2 i/s - 1.07x slower
    encode/msgpack: 74239.7 i/s - 1.09x slower
    encode/beefcake: 36915.1 i/s - 2.20x slower
    encode/protobuf: 34186.1 i/s - 2.37x slower
    -------------------------------------------------
    decode/beefcake 33.048k (± 9.3%) i/s - 164.672k
    decode/protobuf 45.565k (± 8.7%) i/s - 226.838k
    decode/json 80.541k (±17.0%) i/s - 390.258k
    decode/yajl 92.441k (±18.2%) i/s - 442.662k
    decode/msgpack 126.193k (±12.7%) i/s - 624.618k
    Comparison:
    decode/msgpack: 126192.7 i/s
    decode/yajl: 92441.2 i/s - 1.37x slower
    decode/json: 80540.7 i/s - 1.57x slower
    decode/protobuf: 45565.1 i/s - 2.77x slower
    decode/beefcake: 33047.8 i/s - 3.82x slower
    https://github.com/quirkey/format_benchmark
    

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41. Clear wins
    • Centralized Schema
    • Easy Serialization into objects
    • Handles removal/addition of fields
    easily
    • Real types + nesting
    • Compact (on the wire)
    

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42. Downsides
    • Encoded output is not human readable
    (does that matter?)
    • Ruby encoding/decoding is not fast
    (it’s not that slow - wire matters more)
    • Ruby libraries are not the best
    (Support for other languages is great,
    though)
    

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43. Protobufs over …
    But what about
    the Protocol?
    

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44. Just stuff them in the body and call it a day.
    HTTP?
    

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45. The simplest thing I could possibly think of
    within the bounds of NIH syndrome.
    TCPEZ
    http://github.com/paperlesspost/tcpez
    http://github.com/paperlesspost/tcpez-client
    

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46. client server
    Header Body
    4 PING
    Header Body
    4 PONG
    

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47. client server
    Header Body
    n
    Header Body
    n
    

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48. TCPEZ
    • Client -> Server (Req/Resp)
    • So far Go server + Ruby client
    • Client is the load balancer
    • Request and Response encoding/decoding are
    not part of the protocol.
    • Each tcpez based project defines its own Request/
    Response and these can be in any format
    • Built in by default: Good logging, Statsd, Protocol
    Buffers, Pipelined requests!
    

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49. Multiple Apps,
    Requests in the 100M since 10/2013
    TCPEZ is in production at
    Paperless Post
    

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50. A quick aside …
    

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51. http://research.google.com/pubs/pub36356.html
    Read Google’s Dapper Paper
    Building a distributed system without
    introspectability is a fools errand
    

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53. Clients for all (incl. Ruby) but server is Java
    only now
    GRPC = A layer above
    Protobufs over HTTP/2
    

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54. New version of protobufs has new features:
    reserved tags, repeated compaction,
    importing, more …
    GRPC also relies on proto3
    

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55. The Moral of the Story
    

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56. Don’t accept the
    community defaults
    without checking out
    the alternatives
    

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57. @aq
    quirkey.com
    github.com/quirkey
    THANKS
    

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