So you Want to Distribute your GraphQL Schema?

Transcript

1. How people build software
   !
   "
   So you Want to Distribute your GraphQL Schema?
   @__xuorig__
   GraphQL Day
   Feb. 28th, Toronto
   

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2. How people build software
   !
   Marc-André Giroux
   @__xuorig__
   Montreal, Canada
   2
   !
   

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3. How people build software
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   Distributed GraphQL?
   

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4. How people build software
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   GraphQL

   API
   query {
   allPlanets {
   edges {
   node {
   population
   }
   }
   }
   }
   

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5. How people build software
   "
   • Independent development
   • Independent scalability
   • Availability
   • Strong Boundaries
   • A ton of other good reasons
   

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6. How people build software
   "
   Schema 1
   query {
   allPlanets {
   edges {
   node {
   population
   }
   }
   }
   }
   Schema 2 Schema 3 Schema n
   

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7. How people build software
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   Lots of solutions in the past few years...
   

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8. How people build software
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   Schema Stitching ✨
   

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9. How people build software
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   ✨ Schema Federation
   

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10. How people build software
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    Schema Modules ✨
    

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11. How people build software
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    ✨ Schema Composition
    

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12. How people build software
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    Namespaces ✨
    

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13. How people build software
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    ✨ GraphQL Gateway
    

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14. How people build software
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    Apollo's "Principled GraphQL"
    

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15. How people build software
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    1. One Graph (One exposed schema)
    2. Federated Implementation (Distributed schema)
    

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16. How people build software
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    Is this the only way going forward?
    

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17. How people build software
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    Maybe ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
    

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18. How people build software
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    But first... a bit of history.
    Why are we here today?
    

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19. How people build software
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    Endpoint Based APIs
    

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20. How people build software
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    • Very well optimized for one use case
    • Easily cacheable
    • Provide links to related resources (REST)
    

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21. How people build software
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    Very optimized for one use case
    

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22. How people build software
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    API
    Web Browsers
    Mobile
    Servers
    Analytics
    Gaming Consoles
    Your fridge
    Internal Services
    

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23. How people build software
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    Each client usually has different data requirements and
    even slightly different use cases!
    

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24. How people build software
    "
    GET /planets
    GET /planets_for_fridge
    GET /planets?version=playstation
    GET /planets?partial=minimal
    GET /planets?fields=name,population
    GET /planets?fields=reinventaquerylanguage
    Accept Header
    ...
    

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25. How people build software
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    GraphQL is not the first time
    we try to solve this problem!
    

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26. How people build software
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    ~6 years ago @ Netflix
    

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27. How people build software
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    https://medium.com/netflix-techblog/embracing-the-differences-inside-the-netflix-api-redesign
    

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28. How people build software
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    ~6 years ago @ SoundCloud
    

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29. How people build software
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    http://philcalcado.com/2015/09/18/the_back_end_for_front_end_pattern_bff.html
    

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30. How people build software
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    What was going on at Facebook back then?
    

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31. How people build software
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32. How people build software
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    GraphQL is kind of a BFF!
    

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33. How people build software
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    GraphQL is kind of an client-based adapter engine!
    

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34. How people build software
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    Let's talk distributed schemas!
    

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35. How people build software
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    Schema Stitching
    

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36. How people build software
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    type Query {
    films: [Film!]!
    }
    type Film {
    name: String!
    }
    type Query {
    character(id: ID!): Character
    }
    type Character {
    name: String!
    }
    FILM SERVICE CHARACTER SERVICE
    

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37. How people build software
    "
    type Query {
    films: [Film!]!
    character(id: ID!): Character
    }
    type Film {
    name: String!
    }
    type Character {
    name: String!
    }
    GATEWAY
    

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38. How people build software
    "
    type Query {
    films: [Film!]!
    }
    type Film {
    name: String!
    characters: [Character!]!
    }
    type Query {
    character(id: ID!): Character
    }
    type Character {
    name: String!
    films: [Film!]!
    }
    FILM SERVICE CHARACTER SERVICE
    

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39. How people build software
    "
    type Query {
    films: [Film!]!
    }
    type Film {
    name: String!
    characters: [Character!]!
    }
    type Query {
    character(id: ID!): Character
    }
    type Character {
    name: String!
    films: [Film!]!
    }
    FILM SERVICE CHARACTER SERVICE
    ? ?
    

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40. How people build software
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    Two Options
    

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41. How people build software
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    1. ID References
    

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42. How people build software
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    type Query {
    films: [Film!]!
    }
    type Film {
    name: String!
    characters: [Character!]!
    }
    type Query {
    character(id: ID!): Character
    }
    type Character {
    name: String!
    films: [Film!]!
    }
    FILM SERVICE CHARACTER SERVICE
    ? ?
    

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43. How people build software
    "
    type Query {
    films: [Film!]!
    filmsById(ids: [ID!]!: [Film!]!
    }
    type Film {
    name: String!
    characterIDs: [ID!]!
    }
    type Query {
    characters(ids: [ID!]): [Character!]!
    }
    type Character {
    name: String!
    filmIDs: [ID!]!
    }
    FILM SERVICE CHARACTER SERVICE
    

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44. How people build software
    "
    • One of GraphQL's great feature is how we can expand relationships within a single
    query, we've lost that ability because every query requires `ids` to have been fetched
    before.
    • To avoid many round trips, schemas that use this approach will try to load as many
    things as possible using the ID of a certain resource.
    • Our schema design is affected by the fact our schema is separated in multiple services.
    Ideally we'd like our clients not be affected by the technical decision of using a
    distributed architecture.
    

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45. How people build software
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    2. Relations at merge time
    

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46. How people build software
    "
    type Query {
    films: [Film!]!
    }
    type Film {
    name: String!
    characters: [Character!]!
    }
    type Query {
    character(id: ID!): Character
    }
    type Character {
    name: String!
    films: [Film!]!
    }
    FILM SERVICE CHARACTER SERVICE
    ? ?
    

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47. How people build software
    "
    type Query {
    films: [Film!]!
    }
    type Film {
    name: String!
    }
    type Query {
    character(id: ID!): Character
    }
    type Character {
    name: String!
    }
    FILM SERVICE CHARACTER SERVICE
    

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48. How people build software
    "
    extend Film {
    characters: [Character!]!
    }
    extend Character {
    films: [Film!]!
    }
    LINKS
    

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49. How people build software
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    gateway = merge(merge(films, characters), links)
    

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50. How people build software
    "
    type Query {
    films: [Film!]!
    character(id: ID!): Character
    }
    type Film {
    name: String!
    }
    type Character {
    name: String!
    }
    extend Film {
    characters: [Character!]!
    }
    extend Character {
    films: [Film!]!
    }
    

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51. How people build software
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    Gateway (Stitched Schema, Links)
    Film Service & Schema Character Service & Schema
    

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52. How people build software
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    Did we actually decentralize?
    

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53. How people build software
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    Gateway (Stitched Schema, Links)
    Film Service & Schema Character Service & Schema
    Adding new functionality
    Add a new type to the
    character schema
    Add a link to "plug in" the new feature
    with the rest of the schema
    

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54. How people build software
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    • Schema modifications now often require a two step process (Add new functionality to
    the right schema, extend at gateway to allow for relationships)
    • We end up with something still quite centralized because of where the relationships
    are formed and the final schema is built
    • It's not very clear where new schema use cases go. We risk that a lot of domain logic
    will leak into the gateway, making our GraphQL gateway a monolithic API, the thing we
    wanted to avoid in the first place using this solution.
    

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55. How people build software
    "
    

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56. How people build software
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    What should an API Gateway even do?
    What it should it not do?
    

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57. How people build software
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    The Goal: Decouple clients from the services involved in
    consumed use cases
    

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58. How people build software
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    Avoid: Business logic leaking into the gateway itself
    

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59. How people build software
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    Avoid: Single Point of Failure
    

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60. How people build software
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    "We remain concerned about business logic and process orchestration implemented in
    middleware, especially where it requires expert skills and tooling while creating single points
    of scaling and control. Vendors in the highly competitive API gateway market are continuing
    this trend by adding features through which they attempt to differentiate their products. This
    results in OVERAMBITIOUS API GATEWAY products whose functionality — on top of
    what is essentially a reverse proxy — encourages designs that continue to be difficult to test
    and deploy."
    HTTPS://WWW.THOUGHTWORKS.COM/RADAR/PLATFORMS/OVERAMBITIOUS-API-GATEWAYS
    

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61. How people build software
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    What about schema composition/federation?
    

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62. How people build software
    "
    type Query {
    films: [Film!]!
    }
    type Film {
    name: String!
    }
    extend Character {
    films: [Film!]!
    }
    type Query {
    character(id: ID!): Character
    }
    type Character {
    name: String!
    }
    extend Film {
    characters: [Character!]!
    }
    FILM SERVICE CHARACTER SERVICE
    

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63. How people build software
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    • Schema Stithing but without
    the "links"
    • Choreography vs Orchestration
    • The "Gateway" does almost
    nothing in theory
    

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64. How people build software
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    Type Dependencies
    

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65. How people build software
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    Testing / Development
    

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66. How people build software
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    Who's in charge of the "query plans"?
    

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67. How people build software
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    Tradeoff between development & operational complexity
    

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68. How people build software
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    I worry about splitting up schemas too early
    

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69. How people build software
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    Never forget that we're trying to enable use cases, and
    don't actually care about the services involved
    

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70. How people build software
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    Splitting schemas per service may be leading us to designing a
    schema that maps too much to our internal view of things
    rather than focusing on use cases
    

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71. How people build software
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    Takeaways
    

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72. How people build software
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    GraphQL seems like a real great fit to expose an API and
    decouple clients from the services that enable use cases
    

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73. How people build software
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    But it's not clear to me we need to split up schemas across
    the network.
    

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74. How people build software
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    Use GraphQL as your special "Backend for Frontend"
    

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75. How people build software
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    Make it as thin as possible
    

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76. How people build software
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    Ask yourself if the GraphQL API itself needs to be split up
    

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77. How people build software
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    Chances are you might not need to yet
    

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78. How people build software
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    If it really does... consider splitting in larger "use case"
    chunks versus using a lot of small modules
    

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79. How people build software
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    Keep an eye out for awesome solutions that will be coming
    up. But... always remember what our initials goals were!
    

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80. How people build software
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    Thank you!
    @__xuorig__
    

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