The Rough Guide to Java RPC Frameworks

Distributed computing is here to stay, and more and more Java developers are exploring the ecosystem of available remote procedure call (RPC) frameworks for building distributed applications or microservices. However, which RPC framework suits you best?

This presentation will cover the characteristics and usage of different RPC frameworks (e.g. Netty, gRPC, Aeron/SBE, KryoNet, Apache Thrift) via a practical real-life use case. For this presentation, the use case will be providing remote polyglot access to Infinispan, which is an in-memory data grid platform from Red Hat. Since 2010 it has offered remote access via a custom protocol. During this talk we will explore how to re-implement this custom protocol using multiple RPC frameworks. So, you will be to see first hand how these RPC frameworks behave, the necessary steps to get started with them, and learn how you can apply them in your project.

Transcript

1. THE ROUGH GUIDE TO
   JAVA RPC FRAMEWORKS
   1 4 t h M a r c h 2 0 1 8
   G A L D E R Z A M A R R E Ñ O A R R I Z A B A L A G A
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2. D I S T R I B U T E D C O M P U T I N G
   I S H E R E TO S TAY . . .
   2
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3. SCALABILITY
   run multiple instances to meet demand
   ELASTICITY
   scale up/down without downtime
   RESILIENT
   handle failure transparently
   SPEED OF CHANGE
   evolve parts independently
   DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING GIVES US...
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4. 4
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5. COMPONENTS TALKING TO EACH OTHER
   e.g. server / server
   A A X Y
   e.g. client / server
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6. 6
   LEARN HOW COMPONENTS
   CAN TALK TO EACH OTHER
   OVER THE NETWORK
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7. 7
   CONSIDERING OTHER LANGUAGES TOO...
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8. W H Y A M I TA L K I N G
   A B O U T T H I S ?
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9. @galderz
   s i n ce 2 0 0 6
   S O F T WA R E
   E N G I N E E R
   co m m u n i t y a n d
   c l i e n t / s e r ve r l e a d
   I N F I N I S PA N
   C O - F O U N D E R ( 2 0 0 9 )
   M U D K I P R O C K S !
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10. D ATA C A C H E
    T E M P O R A R Y D ATA
    expensive to retrieve
    or hard to calculate
    data that needs surviving
    in case of failure
    E V E N T B R O K E R
    & A N A L Y T I C S
    I N - M E M O R Y S TO R E
    D I S T R I B U T E D
    key / value store
    linearly scalable
    db, cassandra, file...etc
    C A N P E R S I S T
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11. to distribute data around
    pluggable architecture with these as main options
    internal use only
    S E R V E R - TO - S E R V E R O V E R J G R O U P S
    U D P O R TC P
    U S E R S O N L Y S E E C O N F I G U R AT I O N
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12. 12
    EMBEDDED
    2009
    REMOTE
    2010
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13. HTTP 1.x REST API
    G E T / { c a c h e N a m e } / { c a c h e K e y }
    P U T / { c a c h e N a m e } / { c a c h e K e y }
    D E L E T E / { c a c h e N a m e } / { c a c h e K e y }
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14. GOOD
    H T T P 1 . x R E S T A P I
    easy to learn, easy to debug
    D E S C R I P T I V E
    easily accessible from any language
    U N I V E R S A L L Y A C C E S S I B L E
    BAD
    H T T P 1 . x R E S T A P I
    text data takes much more bandwidth
    parsing expensive
    I N E F F I C I E N T P R O T O C O L
    as a result of sending parallel requests
    C O N N E C T I O N E X H A U S T I O N
    processing a request needs to finish before
    starting with next one
    P R O C E S S O N E R E Q U E S T AT T I M E
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15. BINARY PROTOCOL
    Y O U C A N W R I T E H E R E
    H O T R O D
    less bytes sent, zig-zag encoding
    B E T T E R N E T W O R K E F F I C I E N C Y
    avoid extra hoops
    H A S H I N G - AWA R E R O U T I N G
    automatically adjust topologies
    as nodes join or leave
    D Y N A M I C TO P O L O G I E S
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16. NETTY
    used to develop protocol servers and clients
    N I O C L I E N T / S E R V E R F R A M E W O R K
    allows for clear separation of concerns
    F L E X I B L E & E X T E N S I B L E E V E N T M O D E L
    simplifies and streamlines developing
    TCP or UDP servers
    E A S Y N E T W O R K P R O G R A M M I N G
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    P O W E R I N G O U R B I N A R Y P R O TOCO L
    

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17. GOOD
    N E T T Y
    can handle any type of load
    P E R F O R M A N C E & S C A L A B I L I T Y
    e.g. heavily used at Apple
    H U G E C O M M U N I T Y
    keep your dependencies simple
    N O A D D I T I O N A L D E P E N D E N C I E S
    BAD
    N E T T Y
    mitigated with binary serialization libraries
    M A N U A L E N C O D I N G
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18. IMMATURE
    apache thrift - incubator version 0.2
    message pack - version 0.3
    BOUNDED
    BY THE TOOL
    limit yourself to languages supported by tool
    L E A R N M O R E
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    LACKING STREET
    CREDIBILITY
    google protocol buffers
    NETWORK LAYER
    NOT COVERED
    you still have to write all the network layer
    in each target language
    2010: PORTABLE SERIALIZATION
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19. L A G S B E H I N D
    B U T P O P U L A R
    not as much attention as binary
    particularly for those using
    languages not covered by binary
    1 1 N E W V E R S I O N S
    1 2 N E W O P E R AT I O N S
    both fixes and new operations
    total of 32 operations
    java client is reference one,
    others always lagging a bit behind
    J AVA , C + + / C # , N O D E
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    BINARY HTTP
    8 YEARS ON...
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20. A D D I N G
    N E W O P E R AT I O N S
    R E Q U I R E S
    A L O T O F E F F O R T
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21. MORE OPERATIONS
    MORE QUICKLY
    MORE EFFICIENTLY
    MAINTAIN SAME
    PERFORMANCE
    L E A R N M O R E
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    MODERNISING INFINISPAN REMOTE
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22. simple and easy to use
    backed by years of experience with Stubby
    can work across languages
    S I M P L E & I D I O M AT I C
    P E R F O R M A N T & S C A L A B L E
    I N T E R O P E R A B L E & E X T E N S I B L E
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23. message definition
    portable message encoding mechanism, supporting:
    C++, Objective-C, PHP, Python, Ruby, Node.js, Go, C#,
    Java
    binary protocol - no more text
    native stream support
    stream multiplexing - single connection
    header compression - saves more bandwidth
    I D L
    P R O TO B U F 3
    H T T P / 2
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24. L E T ' S S E E T H I S . . .
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25. HASH-AWARE ROUTING
    Y O U C A N W R I T E H E R E
    W I T H G R P C
    configurable
    C L I E N T - S I D E L O A D B A L A N C I N G
    so that SubchannelPicker can do its job
    A D D K E Y A S H T T P H E A D E R
    inspects HTTP headers and can decide
    which channel to send data through
    S U B C H A N N E L P I C K E R
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26. T I T L E
    S T R E A M R E C O R D I N G
    M O N I TO R & D E B U G
    archive recording
    for later replay
    designed so that internal state
    can be observed at runtime
    Apache License 2.0
    O P E N S O U R C E
    M E S S A G E
    T R A N S P O R T
    H I G H P E R F O R M A N C E
    UDP and IPC transports
    highest throughput with lowest
    and most predictable latency
    schema driven
    source code generation
    J AVA , C + + , . N E T
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27. T I T L E
    S I N G L E W R I T E R
    U N S H A R E D S TAT E
    apply it everywhere
    prefer it where possible
    avoid unnecessary copies
    AV O I D C O P I E S
    G A R B A G E F R E E
    S M A R T B ATC H I N G
    in the message path
    in the message path
    N I O & L O C K - F R E E
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    in steady state running
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28. AERON ARCHITECTURE
    Y O U C A N W R I T E H E R E
    p u b l i s h e r s s e n d m e s s a g e s
    t h a t S u b s c r i b e r s co n s u m e
    U N I D I R E C T I O N A L
    U D P , I P C , I n f i n i b a n d
    d e t a i l s h a n d l e d by
    m e d i a d r i ve r
    M E D I A - S P E C I F I C
    m e d i a d r i ve r a s s e p a ra t e
    p r o ce s s t o avo i d c l i e n t s i d e G C
    S E PA R AT E P R O C E S S
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29. L E T ' S S E E T H I S . . .
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30. WHEN TO USE WHAT?
    Y O U C A N W R I T E H E R E
    you get more control but more code to write
    A E R O N I S L O W L E V E L ( ~ N E T T Y )
    payload & network code generated for multiple languages
    A E R O N I S P O R TA B L E ( ~ g R P C )
    congested networks or clients go across a WAN
    I F TC P N E E D E D : N E T T Y o r g R P C
    aeron specifically designed for this - no TCP support
    I F C L I E N T S I N L A N : A E R O N
    data centre workloads, e.g. P2P nodes within a LAN
    A E R O N G O O D F O R S E R V E R - S E R V E R
    beats even commercial offerings
    A E R O N F O R U L T I M AT E P E R F O R M A N C E
    C O M P A R I S O N
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31. ”THE BEST TEMPLATE EVER”
    Y O U C A N W R I T E H E R E
    A company is an association or collection of individuals, whether natural persons, legal
    persons, or a mixture of both. Company members share a common purpose and unite in
    order to focus their various.
    31
    github.com/benalexau/rpc-bench
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32. ”THE BEST TEMPLATE EVER”
    Y O U C A N W R I T E H E R E
    A company is an association or collection of individuals, whether natural persons, legal
    persons, or a mixture of both. Company members share a common purpose and unite in
    order to focus their various.
    32
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33. LESSONS LEARNT (SO FAR)
    Y O U C A N W R I T E H E R E
    what is the lowest common denominator?
    N O N E E D C O D E G E N E R AT E D I N A L L L A N G U A G E S
    aeron is a strong candidate but we don't control clients
    F O R I N F I N I S PA N , P R O B A B L Y G R P C
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    C or a more typesafe language that can create C bindings (e.g. Haskell?)
    if JNI goes away (project panama), maybe Java can call into C
    J AVA A N D C S H O U L D B E E N O U G H
    

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34. C R E D I T S
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35. THANK YOU
    i n f i n i s p a n . o r g
    I N F I N I S PA N
    n e t t y . i o
    N E T T Y
    g r p c . i o
    G R P C
    g i t h u b . co m / r e a l - l o g i c / a e r o n
    A E R O N
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