From REST to gRPC:

An API Evolution Story

Joe Runde Michael Keeling

IBM IBM
@joerunde @michaelkeeling
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What is gRPC?

Open source Remote Procedure Call framework

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What is gRPC?

Open source Remote Procedure Call framework

“… a modern, bandwidth and CPU efficient, low latency
way to create massively distributed systems that span
data centers”

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Why should we use gRPC?

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Why is gRPC awesome?

Performance

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Performance Benefits

HTTP / REST
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Performance Benefits

HTTP / REST gRPC

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How does gRPC improve performance?

• HTTP/2 transport protocol

• Binary encodings via protocol buffers
• No more parsing text!
• Compression
• Streaming

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Why is gRPC awesome?

Performance

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Why is gRPC awesome?

Performance
Remote Procedure Calls

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REST setup is tedious

headers = {}
headers.put(“X-FooBar-User”,
user.getFooBarID())
headers.put(“FooBarTransaction”,
app.getNextTxnIDAtomic())
headers.put(“FooBarAlgoType”,
ApproximateFoo.toHeaderString())

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REST setup is tedious

Public class Foo {

@JsonProperty(name=”foo_id”)
String id;

@JsonProperty(name=”bar”)
int bar;
...
}
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REST setup is tedious

Public class Foo {

...
public
Foo(@JsonProperty(“foo_id”,required=true)
String id,
@JsonProperty(“bar”,required=true)
int bar)
{ ... }
}
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RPC setup is easy

request = FooService.RequestBuilder()
.setId(foo.getId())
.setBar(foo.getBar())...
.build();

response = fooClient.DoFooBar(request);

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Why is gRPC Awesome?

Performance
Remote Procedure Calls

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Why is gRPC Awesome?

Performance
Remote Procedure Calls
Strategic Direction of our Platform

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<insert slick demo here>

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Just one problem…

Our current microservices

all use REST.

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Business Constraints

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The Transition Plan

• Phase 1: Design gRPC API

• Phase 2: Run REST and gRPC services
• Phase 3: Transition functional tests
• Phase 4: Remove REST functionality

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DESIGN THE API
Phase I

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 Designing a gRPC API

REST: gRPC:

POST rpc AddFoo(Foo)

/api/foo returns FooID;

GET rpc GetFoo(FooID)

/api/foo/{foo_id} returns Foo;

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 Designing a gRPC API

REST: gRPC:

POST message Foo {

/api/foo FooID id = 1;
repeated Bar bars = 2;
GET }
/api/foo/{foo_id}
message FooID {
string val = 1;
}
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 Designing a gRPC API

REST: gRPC:

POST rpc AddBar(Bar)

/api/foo/{foo_id}/bar returns BarID;

GET rpc GetFoo(BarID)

/api/foo/{foo_id}/bar/ returns Bar;
{bar_id}

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 Designing a gRPC API

REST: gRPC:

POST rpc AddBar(Bar)

/api/foo/{foo_id}/bar returns BarID;

GET rpc GetFoo(BarID)

/api/foo/{foo_id}/bar/ returns Bar;
{bar_id}

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 Designing a gRPC API

REST: gRPC:
message Bar{
POST BarID id = 1;
/api/foo/{foo_id}/bar int baz = 2;
}
GET
/api/foo/{foo_id}/bar/ message BarID {
{bar_id} FooID foo_id = 1;
string bar_id = 2;
}
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Designing a gRPC API

Bar service:

/api/foo/{foo_id}/bar/{bar_id}

Buzz service:

/api/foo/{foo_id}/buzz/{buzz_id}

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SERVE REST AND GRPC
Phase II

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Current: REST Only

REST
Caller

FooBar
Service
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Future: REST and gRPC

REST gRPC
Caller Caller

FooBar
Service
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We need to evolve our API without
damaging basic functionality.

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Current: Layers View

Rest Service
Code Package
Business Logic Models

is allowed to
use Datastore Access

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Future: Layers View

Rest gRPC
Service Service

Code Package
Business Logic Models

is allowed to
use Datastore Access

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Layer Pattern Rocks!

A code review comment:

"What's with the service

layer? This just passes
its inputs to our business
logic functions, it's
redundant cruft!"

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Evolving the code went really well…

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Things that suddenly became a problem

• Health Checks
• API Discovery
• No curl
• Headers?
• SSL?
• Simple community examples
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TRANSITION FUNCTIONAL TESTS
Phase III

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Specification by Example

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Specification by Example- REST

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Ruby metaprogramming

Choice of programming language really paid off

request = Object::const_get(
”FooBar::#{message_name}").decode_json(json)

response = client.method(method_name.to_sym)
.call(request)

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Specification by Example- gRPC

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200+ tests transitioned in 1 week

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Why did this go so well?

• Expressiveness of spec by example

• Flexibility of Ruby
• gRPC can decode JSON

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REMOVE REST FUNCTIONALITY
Phase IV

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rm –rf src/*rest*

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We need to retain some REST endpoints

REST gRPC
Caller Caller

FooBar
Service
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 Current Layered Architecture

Service Rest gRPC

Service Service

Business Logic Models

FooBar
Service
Datastore Access
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 Layers Forked – Two Services
REST Service
FooBar
gRPC Clients Proxy

Service gRPC Service

Business Logic Models

FooBar
Service
Datastore Access
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Evil wizards strike again!

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NOW WE’RE READY FOR
RELEASE…?

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New problems we created

• Health Checks
• API Discovery
• No curl
• Headers?
• SSL?

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New problems we created

• Health Checks
• API Discovery
• No curl
• Headers?
• SSL?

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API Discovery

• REST – Ask the service!

• gRPC – Find the (correct) proto file?

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API Discovery

• REST – Ask the service!

• gRPC – Find the (correct) proto file?
• Standard InfoService serves github url + version
• Snapshot proto files with releases
• Client vendors the proto files they use

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Tools support

• Basically Nonexistent
• Our solutions:
• Hand roll mocks for testing
• Write new functional tests each time we
wanted to use curl

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Adios,
REST!

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INTERESTING THINGS WE
LEARNED

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• The right kinds of abstractions promote
extensibility
• Focus on the domain model
• Create a specification by example
• Take care when choosing frameworks
• Deal with risks of technology adoption
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Would we do it again?

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Would we do it again?

Yes.
• Super easy to integrate with a service
• Promotes small polyglot services
• Difficult to do bad things
• Performance is 🔥 🔥 🔥

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Thank you!
Michael Keeling Joe Runde
@michaelkeeling @joerunde
neverletdown.net

Buy Design It! now at

http://bit.ly/2pJOrly
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