Beyond The Buzzwords - Microservices and Event-Driven Architecture

Talk given at Dreamforce 2018, September 26th 2018 in Moscone West, San Francisco.

Let's set aside the marketing spin for a moment and focus on the real-world problems that microservices and event streams can solve for us. We'll explore why you should consider these patterns, the exciting technologies that support them, such as Apache Kafka, and most importantly, how you can set aside your fears and be confident in what you're building now and the future.

Transcript

1. Beyond the Buzzwords: Microservices and Event-Driven Architecture with Apache Kafka on Heroku Ryan Townsend SHIFT Commerce CTO Chris Castle Heroku Developer Advocate
2. This presentation may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. If any such uncertainties materialize or if any of the assumptions proves incorrect, the results of salesforce.com, inc. could differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements we make. All statements other than statements of historical fact could be deemed forward-looking, including any projections of product or service availability, subscriber growth, earnings, revenues, or other financial items and any statements regarding strategies or plans of management for future operations, statements of belief, any statements concerning new, planned, or upgraded services or technology developments and customer contracts or use of our services. The risks and uncertainties referred to above include – but are not limited to – risks associated with developing and delivering new functionality for our service, new products and services, our new business model, our past operating losses, possible fluctuations in our operating results and rate of growth, interruptions or delays in our Web hosting, breach of our security measures, the outcome of any litigation, risks associated with completed and any possible mergers and acquisitions, the immature market in which we operate, our relatively limited operating history, our ability to expand, retain, and motivate our employees and manage our growth, new releases of our service and successful customer deployment, our limited history reselling non-salesforce.com products, and utilization and selling to larger enterprise customers. Further information on potential factors that could affect the financial results of salesforce.com, inc. is included in our annual report on Form 10-K for the most recent fiscal year and in our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the most recent fiscal quarter. These documents and others containing important disclosures are available on the SEC Filings section of the Investor Information section of our Web site. Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other presentations, press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase our services should make the purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com, inc. assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements. Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 Forward-Looking Statement
3. Why are we here? @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2
4. Anxiety @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2
5. Monoliths and Microservices @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2
6. “There is no industry consensus yet regarding the properties of microservices, and an official definition is missing as well.”
 - Wikipedia @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2
7. ryan.townsend@shiftcommerce.com Ryan Townsend, CTO chris.castle@salesforce.com Chris Castle, Developer Advocate @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2
8. 20 minutes No time for questions! @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2
9. Why the hype around microservices? @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2
10. All the cool kids are doing it @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2
11. But what are the real benefits? @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2
12. @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2 Strong Module Boundaries Independent Deployment Technology Diversity Source: Martin Fowler, ThoughtWorks
13. If this isn’t you, that’s ok! @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2
14. Because there is a price to pay @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2
15. Data / Functionality Distribution Eventual Consistency Operational Complexity @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2 Source: Martin Fowler, ThoughtWorks
16. How do we mitigate these? @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2
17. Demo Time! @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2
18. Solution: Data / Functionality Distribution @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2
19. Solution: Data / Functionality Distribution @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2 n * (n-1) / 2 Max possible connections
20. Solution: Data / Functionality Distribution @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2 Source: AWS
21. Solution: Data / Functionality Distribution Digital Asset Management Product Information Management Upload product-123.jpg! Admin Panel Photographer Database or Search Index Merchandiser @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2 Chronological Event Stream (Kafka) Uploaded Event What images can I attach to my products? Uploaded Event Add image to index
22. Solution: Eventual Consistency Digital Asset Management Product Information Management Delete product-123.jpg! Admin Panel Photographer Merchandiser @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2 Event Create Product #123 with product-123.jpg Event Send to trash Event Untrash Admin Panel Chronological Event Stream (Kafka)
23. Start with monolith and extract pieces – build up your maturity Solution: Operational Complexity @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2
24. Cost of engineers vs cost of Heroku Solution: Operational Complexity @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2 Opportunity Cost!
25. Maturity of engineers vs maturity of Heroku Solution: Operational Complexity @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2
26. Simplicity of using Apache Kafka in Heroku Solution: Operational Complexity @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2
27. • Start with a monolith and break out services from there • Use Heroku ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ • Isolate consistency concerns • Ensure each service is self- serving
 e.g. own data stores • Handle via UI, acknowledgement • Use event stream
 e.g. Apache Kafka Distribution Eventual Consistency Operational Complexity @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2
28. How the approach grows @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2
29. @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2 Streaming Platform Store 1 Store 2 Online Store Distribution Centre Online Marketing POS Stream Inventory Stream Remarketing Stream Retail Monitoring Reporting Data Warehouse Inventory Service Logistics Service Purchasing Service Profile Update Service Remarketing Service Source: Confluent
30. @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2 Source: AWS
31. Elephant in the room: Scaling @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2
32. @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2 Monoliths can scale more than you might think… e.g.
33. take a photo of this slide, or download at https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2 @ryantownsend / @crc Slides: https://bit.ly/2zx3TW2 • Last year’s talk - more on Event Streams
 https://hrku.co/df17-event-streams • Microservices Resource Guide
 https://hrku.co/microservices-guide • Deconstructing Monolithic Applications into Services
 https://hrku.co/deconstructing-monoliths • How Small Should Your Microservices Be?
 https://hrku.co/microservice-sizing Next Steps Summary • Monoliths are okay - microservices aren’t a silver bullet • Start with a monolith - migrate as a journey not a single project • Having a centralised source of truth will set you up for success - Apache Kafka is a great solution • Heroku makes it quick and easy to get started and provides the DevOps maturity