I have a running system that process short and long running operations with a Request-Response interface based on Agatha-RRSL.
Now we want to change a little in order to be able to send requests via website in Json format so i'm trying many REST server implementation that support Json.
REST server will be one module or "shelve" handled by Topshelf, another module will be the processing module and the last the NoSQL database runner module.
To talk between REST and processing module i'm thinking about a servicebus but we have two types of request: short requests that perform work in 1-2 seconds and long requests that do work in 1 minute..
Is servicebus the right choice for this work? I'm thinking about returning a "response" for long running op with a token that can be used to request operation status and results with a new request. The problem is that big part of the requests must be used like sync request in order to complete http response.
I think I have also problems with response size (on MSMQ message transport) when I have to return huge list of objects
Any hint?
NServiceBus is not really suitable for request-response messaging patterns. It's more suited to asynchronous publish-subscribe.
Edit: In order to implement a kind of request response, you would need to message in both directions, but consisting of three logical steps:
So your client sends a message requesting the data.
The server would receive the message, process it, construct a return message with the data, and send it to the client.
The client can then process the data.
Because each of these steps takes place in isolation and in an asynchronous manner there can be no meaningful SLA or timeout enforced between when a client sends a request and receives a response. But this works nicely for large processing job which may take several minutes to complete.
Additionally a common value which can be used to tie the request to the response will need to be present in both messages. Otherwise a client could send more than one request, and receive multiple responses and not know which response was for which request.
So you can do this with NServiceBus but it takes a little more thought.
Also NServiceBus uses MSMQ as the underlying transport, not http.
Related
I am designing a microservice architecture, using a database per service pattern.
Following the example of Order Service and Shipping Service, when a user makes an HTTP REST request to the Order Service, this one fires an event to notify shipping service. All this happens asynchronously. So, what happens with the user experience? I mean, the user needs an immediate response from the HTTP request. How can I handle this scenario?
All this happens asynchronously. So, What happen with the user experience? I mean, the user needs an immediately response from the HTTP request. How can I handle this scenario?
Respond as soon as you have stored the request.
Part of the point of microservices is that you have a system composed of independently deployable elements that do not require coordination.
If you want a system that is reliable even though the services don't have 100% uptime, then you need to have some form of durable message storage so that the sender and the receiver don't need to be running at the same time.
Therefore, your basic pattern for data from the outside is that the information from the incoming HTTP request is copied, not directly into a running service, but instead into the message store, to be processed by the service at some later time.
In other words, your REST API is a facade in front of your storage, not in front of the service itself.
The actor model may be a useful analogy; information moves around by copying messages into different inboxes, and are later consumed by the subscribing actor.
From the perspective of the client, the HTTP response is an acknowledgement that the request has been received and recognized as valid. Think "thank you for your order, we'll send you an email when your purchase is ready for pick up."
On the web, we would include in the response links to other useful resources; click here to see the status of your order, click there to see your history of recent orders, and so on.
USE-CASE:
I am designing an update API where the external clients can pass the resource information (in JSON format) to persist. The whole resource is persisted into multiple downstreams(parallely) in form of smaller resources. So, if any one downstream is down, I plan to return 5XX http response code to make sure the client retries. But at the same time want to make sure the client is aware of what part of the resource was successful.
I looked into other similar questions (Q1, Q2) about HTTP response code as 207 and 202 but they are not applicable to my use-case as this is not a batch request and the full resource is can be divided into smaller resources for the external clients. From my understanding, 202 is applicable for async processing scenarios where we were able to accept the request and are still processing whereas in my case, I want to make sure the client knows that the request failed and he should retry.
APPROACH BEING CONSIDERED
I plan to return HTTP response code as 5XX but at the same time will add the part of the resource (JSON format) to the response that was successful.
I would like to know if the above mentioned approach is accepted from an industry standard and if anyone has solved such use-case.
Honestly, you already talk about sub-resources, partial successes and being able to retry the ones that failed. All of these features are perfectly available in HTTP and will work extremely well, if you just take one more step: split up the request into multiple requests.
How is possible to handle timeouts in time consuming operations in a REST API. Let's say we have the following scenario as example:
A client service sends a request to insert a resource through a REST API.
Timeout elapses. The client thinks the insertion failed.
REST API keep working and finishes the insertion.
Client do not notify the resource insertion and it status is "Failed".
I can think I a solution with a message broker to send orders to a queue and wait until they are solved.
Any other workaround?
EDIT 1:
POST-PUT Pattern as has been suggested in this thread.
A Message Broker (add more complexity to the system)
Callback or webhook. Pass in the request a return url that the server API can call to let the client know that the work is completed.
HTTP offers a set of properties for invoking certain methods. These are primarily safetiness, idempotency and cacheability. While the first one guarantees a client that no data is modified, the 2nd one gives a promise whether a request can be reissued in regards to connection issues and the client not knowing whether the initial request succeeded or not and only the response got lost mid way. PUT i.e. does provide such a property, i.e.
A simple POST request to "insert" some data does not have any of these properties. A server receiving a POST request furthermore processes the payload according to its own semantics. The client does not know beforehand whether a resource will be created or if the server just ignores the request. In case the server created a resource the server will inform the client via the Location HTTP response header pointing to the actual location the client can retrieve information from.
PUT is usually used only to "update" a resource, though according to the spec it can also be used in order to create a new resource if it does not yet exist. As with POST on a successful resource creation the PUT response should include such a Location HTTP response header to inform the client that a resource was created.
The POST-PUT-Creation pattern separates the creation of the URI from the actual persistence of the representation by first firing off POST requests to the server until a response is received containing a Location HTTP response header. This header is used in a PUT request to actually send the payload to the server. As PUT is idempotent the server simply can reissue the request until it receives a valid response from the server.
On sending the initial POST request to the server, a client can't be sure whether the request reached the server and only the response got lost, or the initial request didn't make it to the server. As the request is only used to create a new URI (without any content yet) the client may simply reissue the request and in worst case just create a new URI that points to nothing. The server may have a cleanup routine that frees unused URIs after a certain amount of time.
Once the client receives the URI, it simply can use PUT to reliably send data to the server. As long as the client didn't receive a valid response, it can just reissue the request over and over until it receives a response.
I therefore do not see the need to use a message-oriented middleware (MOM) using brokers and queues in order to guarantee reliable messaging.
You could also cache the data after a successful insertion with a previously exchanged request_id or something of that sort. But I believe message broker with some asynchronous task runner is a much better way to deal with the problem especially if your request thread is a scarce resource. What I mean by that is. If you are receiving a good amount of requests all the time. Then it is a good idea to keep your responses as quickly as possible so the workers will be available for any requests to come.
Web application operations are generally meant to be quick to avoid long wait times to users. However, some operations the web application may perform may be computationally-intensive and take a fair bit of time. What is the best practice in REST to deal with such operations that may be take several minutes yet require an immediate response to users? Is it okay for the web application to take several minutes to return the response of the HTTP request, or is it better to return a 202 response, process in the background somewhere else, and then provide some form of notification to the user?
Is it okay for the web application to take several minutes to return the response of the HTTP request
No. Part of the problem with this approach is that if the server doesn't acknowledge the request in a timely fashion, the client won't know that it reached its intended destination.
is it better to return a 202 response, process in the background somewhere else, and then provide some form of notification to the user?
Yes. That's exactly what 202 Accepted is designed for
The 202 response is intentionally noncommittal. Its purpose is to allow a server to accept a request for some other process (perhaps a batch-oriented process that is only run once per day) without requiring that the user agent's connection to the server persist until the process is completed. The representation sent with this response ought to describe the request's current status and point to (or embed) a status monitor that can provide the user with an estimate of when the request will be fulfilled.
It can help, I think, to remember that we're talking about your integration domain; the client isn't talking to your app. It's instead talking to your API, which pretends to be a web site that the client can integrate with. So your client sends the request to the API, and the API responds with an accepted message accompanied by a bunch of links that will help the client continue with the protocol and eventually reach its goal.
When accessing a REST service from a client that has an unreliable network connection (e.g., some crappy cell network), what are some best practices for handling an error where the network connection drops before the response to a POST can be read. Since POSTs are not idempotent, it's unsafe to naively retry. Are there best practices for this? Assume I'm also designing the service end of this, so there are no constraints on that end of the wire either.
Write a protocol which does not allow to create a second resource when the client did not consume the first one. For example, after GETting the resource, the client should POST back that it consumed it, so the service can safely create another one when the next GET arrives. If no verification POST arrives, the server should respond every subsequent GETs by sending the same resource which was created for the first GET (this may be client-specific). -- This way you can safely repeat the GET after the predefined timeout interval elapses. (If the number of repeats exceeds a given value, it means that you have a permanent network or service error, about which you will have to notify the user.)