Mobile Apps & APIs: Best Friends Forever (Agile Australia)

This talk was presented at Agile Australia 2016 (http://agileaustralia.com.au/2016/)

Mobile apps are powered by APIs, and the trend for building the backend is towards small, fast moving microservices. These granular backends aren’t always well suited to integration with mobile apps. Companies like REA, SoundCloud and Thoughtworks have been experimenting with patterns for developing Backends For Frontends (BFFs) to allow greater flexibility on both the client and the server. Stewart will talk about some of the concerns when building mobile apps and APIs and how the BFF pattern tries to address these.

Transcript

1. Mobile Apps & APIs: Best Friends Forever Stewart Gleadow @stewgleadow stew@bilue.com.au stewgleadow.com/talks
2. 2008 2016 2012 2010
3. 2008 2016 2012 2010 greenfields
4. 2008 2016 2012 2010 greenfields maintenance/evolution
5. 2008 2016 microservices 2012 2010 continuous delivery greenfields maintenance/evolution
6. TRENDS FOR BACKENDS BACKEND FOR FRONTEND PATTERN PRODUCT TEAM STRUCTURES CHALLENGES & GETTING STARTED › › › ›
7. TRENDS FOR BACKENDS BACKEND FOR FRONTEND PATTERN PRODUCT TEAM STRUCTURES CHALLENGES & GETTING STARTED › › › ›
8. BIG LEGACY THING
9. BIG LEGACY THING
10. BIG LEGACY THING API
11. microservices
13. serverless
14. serverless eg. AWS • S3 • SQS • Lambda
16. $10 (in stock) BUY NOW ADD TO CART
17. $10 (in stock) BUY NOW ADD TO CART product
18. $10 (in stock) BUY NOW ADD TO CART product recommendations
19. $10 (in stock) BUY NOW ADD TO CART product favourites warehouse checkout account postal recommendations
20. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_5S Mobile apps: slow to develop, update and maintain
21. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_5S Mobile apps: slow to develop, update and maintain Missing features in the API Rolling out updates takes a long time Dealing with backwards compatibility Many requests for simple actions
22. TRENDS FOR BACKENDS BACKEND FOR FRONTEND PATTERN PRODUCT TEAM STRUCTURES CHALLENGES & GETTING STARTED › › › ›
23. Shield your apps from rapidly evolving backends
24. BACKEND FOR FRONTEND Shield your apps from rapidly evolving backends
25. BACKEND FOR FRONTEND Servers and serverless
26. CONFIGURATION API
27. CONFIGURATION API Static TV Guide Static TV Content .NET node.js clojure
28. Backend for frontend characteristics Stateless, no database Tuned for larger, cacheable responses Failure tolerant and scaleable Aggregate functionality, driven by the experience
29. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego Chunky vs chatty APIs Fewer requests with larger responses Keep responses cacheable Monitor parsing performance on older devices
30. PROFILE SIGN IN SIGN UP Hi, Stewart LOGOUT PROFILE
31. POST /register { username: “me”, password: “mine”, } 409 Conflict PROFILE SIGN IN SIGN UP Hi, Stewart LOGOUT PROFILE
32. POST /login { username: “me”, password: “mine”, } 201 Created Set-Cookie: mytoken=c3Rld0ByZWEtZ3Jvd { token: “c3Rld0ByZWEtZ3Jvd” } PROFILE SIGN IN SIGN UP Hi, Stewart LOGOUT PROFILE
33. GET /details Cookie: mytoken=c3Rld0ByZWEtZ3Jvd 200 OK { details: { name: “Stewart”, twitter: “@stewgleadow” } } PROFILE SIGN IN SIGN UP Hi, Stewart LOGOUT PROFILE
34. PROFILE SIGN IN SIGN UP Hi, Stewart LOGOUT PROFILE GET /history Cookie: mytoken=c3Rld0ByZWEtZ3Jvd 200 OK { history: [ { item: { … } }, { item: { … } } ] }
35. PROFILE SIGN IN SIGN UP Hi, Stewart LOGOUT PROFILE
36. POST /register { username: “me”, password: “mine”, } 201 Created Set-Cookie: mytoken=c3Rld0ByZWEtZ3Jvd { details: { name: “Stewart”, twitter: “@stewgleadow” }, history: [ { item: { … } }, { item: { … } } ] } PROFILE SIGN IN SIGN UP Hi, Stewart LOGOUT PROFILE
37. POST /register { username: “me”, password: “mine”, } 201 Created Set-Cookie: mytoken=c3Rld0ByZWEtZ3Jvd { details: { name: “Stewart”, twitter: “@stewgleadow” }, history: [ { item: { … } }, { item: { … } } ] } PROFILE Hi, Stewart LOGOUT PROFILE LOGIN REGISTER
38. $10 (in stock) BUY NOW ADD TO CART product favourites warehouse checkout account postal recommendations
39. $10 (in stock) BUY NOW ADD TO CART Two requests: 1. All product information 2. Personalised Data
40. BFF get product
41. BFF get core product details get product
42. BFF get core product details get other details in parallel get product
43. BFF get core product details get other details in parallel return all transform data get product
44. The backend for front end Fewer requests, simpler interactions Force logic to the backend Deal with backwards compatibility http://www.flickr.com/photos/setaou/2935943672/
45. TRENDS FOR BACKENDS BACKEND FOR FRONTEND PATTERN PRODUCT TEAM STRUCTURES CHALLENGES & GETTING STARTED › › › ›
46. How many BFFs should I have?
47. How many BFFs should I have? Treat technology platforms as a product? Treat separate audiences and feature sets as a product?
48. BFF BFF
49. BFF BFF
50. CREATORS LISTENERS
51. platform/core teams BFF experience teams
52. http://www.flickr.com/photos/peternijenhuis/6959653638/ BFF organisational pattern Split around your concept of a product People problems trump technology Product teams own their experience API
53. TRENDS FOR BACKENDS BACKEND FOR FRONTEND PATTERN PRODUCT TEAM STRUCTURES CHALLENGES & GETTING STARTED › › › ›
54. BFF ?
55. BFF ? caching
56. BFF ? caching single-point of failure
57. BFF ? caching single-point of failure duplication
58. BFF ? caching single-point of failure duplication
59. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jakecaptive/3205277810 Does this change how you build the apps themselves? Cross-platform mobile tools become less appealing Get’s you closer to continuous delivery
60. API Getting started
61. BFF API Getting started
62. BFF API Migration strategy
63. BFF API Other solutions
64. BFF API GraphQL Other solutions
65. BFF API GraphQL Apigee Mulesoft API Gateway Other solutions
66. TRENDS FOR BACKENDS BACKEND FOR FRONTEND PATTERN PRODUCT TEAM STRUCTURES CHALLENGES & GETTING STARTED › › › ›
67. Mobile Apps & APIs: Best Friends Forever Stewart Gleadow @stewgleadow stew@bilue.com.au stewgleadow.com/talks
68. Questions?
69. Mobile Apps & APIs: Best Friends Forever Stewart Gleadow @stewgleadow stew@bilue.com.au stewgleadow.com/talks
70. REFERENCES • Sam Newman, Pattern: Backends For Frontends: http://samnewman.io/patterns/architectural/bff/ • Stewart Gleadow, Legacy To Mobile First, https://speakerdeck.com/sgleadow/legacy-to-mobile-first • Software Engineering Daily interview with Lukasz Plotnicki, Moving To Microservices At SoundCloud: http://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2016/02/04/moving-to-microservices-at- soundcloud-with-lukasz-plotnicki/ • Stewart Gleadow, Cameron Barrie, James Brett, Evolving Mobile Architectures @ Mi9: http://www.slideshare.net/sgleadow/evolving-mobilearchitectures • Lucasz Plotnicki, BFF @ SoundCloud: https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/bff-soundcloud • Jan Stenberg, A Pattern For API Backends Serving Frontends: http://www.infoq.com/news/2015/12/bff-backend-frontend-pattern • Stewart Gleadow, The Next Killer App Is Not An App: https://www.thoughtworks.com/p2magazine/issue02/mobile/ • Martin Fowler, Microservices: http://martinfowler.com/articles/microservices.html • Sam Newman, Demistifying Conways Law: http://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/demystifying-conways-law • Michael Feathers, Microservices Until Macro Complexity: https://michaelfeathers.silvrback.com/microservices-until-macro-complexity • Anthony Green, What Is A Microservice And Why Does It Matter: http://www.brunton-spall.co.uk/post/2014/05/21/what-is-a-microservice-and-why-does-it-matter • Richard Clayton, Failing At Microservices: https://rclayton.silvrback.com/failing-at-microservices • Fred George, Microservices Architecture: http://yow.eventer.com/yow-2012-1012/micro-services-architecture-by-fred-george-1286 • Todd Hoff, Microservices Not A Free Lunch: http://highscalability.com/blog/2014/4/8/microservices-not-a-free-lunch.html • Martin Fowler, Strangler Application: http://martinfowler.com/bliki/StranglerApplication.html • Stewart Gleadow, No App Is An Island: https://speakerdeck.com/sgleadow/no-app-is-an-island • Sam Newman, Practical Microservices: http://www.slideshare.net/spnewman/practical-microservices-yow-2013 • Jason Goetz, REST API Design: Chunky APIs, Chatty APIs: http://www.jamasoftware.com/blog/rest-api-design/