Microservices Framework Demo

This project is a demo showing a set of microservices using Hazelcast in-memory technology.

The demo includes 4 services:

Account service (customer account balances)
Catalog service (price lookups)
Inventory service
Order service

The technology stack used includes

Hazelcast IMDG - In-memory storage
Hazelcast Jet - Stream processing, computation
gRPC - service-to-service communication
MySQL - database
Debezium - Change Data Capture for database

The intent is to make this a polyglot demo, featuring Java, C#, Python, Go, and Node.js, but the original prototype is all in Java. After initial prototype version of services are validated they can be reimplemented in the chosen target language.

Building

git pull origin master
mvn clean package install

Running

Running the demo

cd TestClient
docker-compose up

Test data is generated at startup time, you may notice pauses or warnings about waiting on a service to be ready, or data is still loading. Once data is ready, the processing of orders will start (Look for log messages beginning with 'Placed order'). Additional logging tracks the progress of the order through the processing steps (detailed later in this document).

You can change how many orders are generated on each run by changing the loop counter in the nonBlockingOrder method of the OrderServiceClient class (in TestClient module).

Completed Steps

Basic prototype implementations of all 4 microservices
Upgrade dependencies from Jet 4.5 to Hazelcast Platform 5.0 Beta 2
- It appears everything is still working as expected after the ugprade

Next Steps

Proposing this as a candidate for the Platform 5.0 Hackathon; for purposes of that event here is a summary of work that could be done to help build out the demo. Which of these tasks are done is primarily a function of who joins the team.

TODO: Polyglot

Prototypes have been written for all services in Java. Propose to keep the Order service in Java, but reimplement Catalog, Account, and Inventory services in C#/.NET, Python, and Go (in any combination).

The Inventory service is using Jet pipelines for business logic; when moving to other languages it's not clear what design to use - if possible to do SQL based Jet pipelines we should do that. Other possibilities are a fairly generic Jet pipeline that calls out to gRPC implementations of Business Logic, Event Store Update, and View Update, or just implement natively in the chosen language.

TODO: Complete CDC implementation

Prototype Change Data Capture pipeline has been added to the Inventory project but it just logs changes. Propose: Add a 'last changed by' field to all tables to allow services to filter out changes that originated from the service. (Currently, only the Inventory service touches the database so all writes are by that service). Implement a price change service in either the Catalog or Inventory service and update the in-memory view of the other service using the CDC events.

TODO: Turbine demonstration

There are several potential failure points; most notably, inventory may not be available for an order, or customer payment may fail. (The pipelines to handle these steps have not yet been written but will be very similar to the check credit and reserve inventory steps that are already done). Sagas should be used to trigger a compensating transaction in the event of a failure of either of these steps. This can be done without Turbine but if we are ready to have a public Turbine demos published, this could be one.

TODO: User interface

There is no user interface other than watching log messages scroll by. It would be nice to have a graphical interface suitable for demo at trade shows, etc. Some ideas:

Show a set of 10 or 20 orders, 1 order per line; each time an event is posted, update a 'current status' column for the order so you can see orders progress from 'created' to 'shipped'. As orders ship, newly created orders can be added to the list,.
Show CDC operation - have a GUI for the price change operation.
- User enters a item number, we query both the catalog and inventory service to show the item records.
- The GUI also subscribes to the item changed event in whichever service isn't doing the price change.
- User hits enter, we display a timestamp.
- When we get change event on the other service, show the change and timestamp / elapsed time.
GUI should use HIVE components to match Management Center look and feel.
Would be nice if we build some reusable graphical components here - something that could be configured with IMap config info and a SQL query, for example, and display the query results as a table or list, possibly with option for continuous query / updates at some interval.

myawnhc/MSF