MicroServices - Let’s Build Some!
It is one thing to talk about MicroServices. It is another altogether to have to build them.
The instructor, Fred George, is cited by Martin Fowler as one of the co-inventors of the MicroService architecture. He has refined it and used it extensively over the last dozen years, mostly on the “fuzzy” problems (see Dave Snowden’s Cynefin model’s Complex and Chaos segments).
After a brief introduction of MicroService principles, we will watch an animation of a MicroService environment. We will start with new versions of pre-built skeleton microservice environment (RabbitMQ message bus with a couple of starter services in Java, C#, and Ruby). We will then design and implement additional services to broaden the overall functionality. These additional services can be written in any language that will run on the participant's laptop. While pairing is strongly encouraged, it is not required.
In the final stage, different pairs will implement different services, yet they will all run together implementing the animation.
Throughout the workshop, we will stop as participants come across common issues with MicroServices. We will use this time to discuss best practices.
We wrap up with the participants making observations on what they learned (and how it may be different from MicroServices they are currently implementing, if any). This is followed by presentations on MicroService challenges and the organization impact of rapidly developed MicroServices.
Outline/structure of the session
- Introduction to MicroServices
- Sample asynchronous MicroService application
- Installation of sample MicroServices for the exercise
- Installing RabbitMQ drivers for your language
- Testing access to RabbitMQ server
- Implementing a new MicroService
- Discussion of effort
- Implementing a second MicroService
- Discussion and review of code
- Implementing the application (teams develop different services that will work together)
- Wrap up observations by participants
Learning Outcome
The focus of the workshop will be on: 1) Understanding how to design asynchronous service architectures, 2) Creating small, yet functional, services rather than larger services, 3) Reducing coupling to the bare minimum (JSON packets with extra fields ignored), and 4) Debugging asynchronous systems.
Target Audience
Developers (we will be writing code).
