This component provides an infrastructure to publish and discover various resources, such as service
proxies, HTTP endpoints, data sources… These resources are called services
. A service
is a discoverable
functionality. It can be qualified by its type, metadata, and location. So a service
can be a database, a
service proxy, a HTTP endpoint and any other resource you can imagine as soon as you can describe it, discover it
and interact with it. It does not have to be a vert.x entity, but can be anything. Each service is described by a
Record
.
The service discovery implements the interactions defined in service-oriented computing. And to some extent, also provides the dynamic service-oriented computing interactions. So, applications can react to arrival and departure of services.
A service provider can:
-
publish a service record
-
un-publish a published record
-
update the status of a published service (down, out of service…)
A service consumer can:
-
lookup services
-
bind to a selected service (it gets a
ServiceReference
) and use it -
release the service once the consumer is done with it
-
listen for arrival, departure and modification of services.
Consumer would 1) lookup a service record matching their need, 2) retrieve the
ServiceReference
that give access to the service, 3) get a service object to access
the service, 4) release the service object once done.
The process can be simplified using service type where you can directly retrieve the service object if you know from which type it is (JDBC client, Http client…).
As stated above, the central piece of information shared by the providers and consumers are
records
.
Providers and consumers must create their own ServiceDiscovery
instance. These
instances are collaborating in the background (distributed structure) to keep the set of services in sync.
The service discovery supports bridges to import and export services from / to other discovery technologies.
Using the service discovery
To use the Vert.x service discovery, add the following dependency to the dependencies section of your build descriptor:
-
Maven (in your
pom.xml
):
<dependency>
<groupId>io.vertx</groupId>
<artifactId>vertx-service-discovery</artifactId>
<version>4.0.0.Beta1</version>
</dependency>
-
Gradle (in your
build.gradle
file):
compile 'io.vertx:vertx-service-discovery:4.0.0.Beta1'
Overall concepts
The discovery mechanism is based on a few concepts explained in this section.
Service records
A service Record
is an object that describes a service published by a service
provider. It contains a name, some metadata, a location object (describing where is the service). This record is
the only object shared by the provider (having published it) and the consumer (retrieve it when doing a lookup).
The metadata and even the location format depend on the service type
(see below).
A record is published when the provider is ready to be used, and withdrawn when the service provider is stopping.
Service Provider and publisher
A service provider is an entity providing a service. The publisher is responsible for publishing a record describing the provider. It may be a single entity (a provider publishing itself) or a different entity.
Service Consumer
Service consumers search for services in the service discovery. Each lookup retrieves 0..n
Record
. From these records, a consumer can retrieve a
ServiceReference
, representing the binding between the consumer and the provider.
This reference allows the consumer to retrieve the service object (to use the service), and release the service.
It is important to release service references to cleanup the objects and update the service usages.
Service object
The service object is the object that gives access to a service. It can come in various forms, such as a proxy, a client, and may even be non-existent for some service types. The nature of the service object depends on the service type.
Notice that because of the polyglot nature of Vert.x, the service object can differ if you retrieve it from Java, Groovy or another language.
Service types
Services are just resources, and there are a lot of different kinds of services. They can be functional services, databases, REST APIs, and so on. The Vert.x service discovery has the concept of service types to handle this heterogeneity. Each type defines:
-
how the service is located (URI, event bus address, IP / DNS…) - location
-
the nature of the service object (service proxy, HTTP client, message consumer…) - client
Some service types are implemented and provided by the service discovery component, but you can add your own.
Service events
Every time a service provider is published or withdrawn, an event is fired on the event bus. This event contains the record that has been modified.
In addition, in order to track who is using who, every time a reference is retrieved with
getReference
or released with
release
, events are emitted on the event bus to track the
service usages.
More details on these events below.
Backend
The service discovery uses a Vert.x distributed data structure to store the records. So, all members of the cluster
have access to all the records. This is the default backend implementation. You can implement your own by
implementing the ServiceDiscoveryBackend
SPI. For instance, we provide an
implementation based on Redis.
Notice that the discovery does not require Vert.x clustering. In single-node mode, the structure is local. It can
be populated with ServiceImporter`s. Since 3.5.0, you can use a local
structure even in clustered mode by setting the system property `vertx-service-discovery-backend-local
to true
(or
the environment variable VERTX-SERVICE-DISCOVERY-BACKEND-LOCAL
to true
).
Creating a service discovery instance
Publishers and consumers must create their own ServiceDiscovery
instance to use the discovery infrastructure:
// Use default configuration
var discovery = ServiceDiscovery.create(vertx)
// Customize the configuration
discovery = ServiceDiscovery.create(vertx, ServiceDiscoveryOptions(
announceAddress = "service-announce",
name = "my-name"))
// Do something...
discovery.close()
By default, the announce address (the event bus address on which service events are sent is: vertx.discovery
.announce
. You can also configure a name used for the service usage (see section about service usage).
When you don’t need the service discovery object anymore, don’t forget to close it. It closes the different discovery importers and exporters you have configured and releases the service references.
You should avoid sharing the service discovery instance, so service usage would represent the right "usages".
Publishing services
Once you have a service discovery instance, you can publish services. The process is the following:
-
create a record for a specific service provider
-
publish this record
-
keep the published record that is used to un-publish a service or modify it.
To create records, you can either use the Record
class, or use convenient methods
from the service types.
// Manual record creation
var record = Record(
type = "eventbus-service-proxy",
location = json {
obj("endpoint" to "the-service-address")
},
name = "my-service",
metadata = json {
obj("some-label" to "some-value")
})
discovery.publish(record, { ar ->
if (ar.succeeded()) {
// publication succeeded
var publishedRecord = ar.result()
} else {
// publication failed
}
})
// Record creation from a type
record = HttpEndpoint.createRecord("some-rest-api", "localhost", 8080, "/api")
discovery.publish(record, { ar ->
if (ar.succeeded()) {
// publication succeeded
var publishedRecord = ar.result()
} else {
// publication failed
}
})
It is important to keep a reference on the returned records, as this record has been extended by a registration id
.
Withdrawing services
To withdraw (un-publish) a record, use:
discovery.unpublish(record.registration, { ar ->
if (ar.succeeded()) {
// Ok
} else {
// cannot un-publish the service, may have already been removed, or the record is not published
}
})
Looking for services
This section explains the low-level process to retrieve services, each service type provide convenient method to aggregates the different steps.
On the consumer side, the first thing to do is to lookup for records. You can search for a single record or all the matching ones. In the first case, the first matching record is returned.
Consumer can pass a filter to select the service. There are two ways to describe the filter:
-
A function taking a
Record
as parameter and returning a boolean (it’s a predicate) -
This filter is a JSON object. Each entry of the given filter is checked against the record. All entries must exactly match the record. The entry can use the special
*
value to denote a requirement on the key, but not on the value.
Let’s see an example of a JSON filter:
{ "name" = "a" } => matches records with name set to "a" { "color" = "*" } => matches records with "color" set { "color" = "red" } => only matches records with "color" set to "red" { "color" = "red", "name" = "a"} => only matches records with name set to "a", and color set to "red"
If the JSON filter is not set (null
or empty), it accepts all records. When using functions, to accept all
records, you must return true regardless the record.
Here are some examples:
// Get any record
discovery.getRecord({ r ->
true
}, { ar ->
if (ar.succeeded()) {
if (ar.result() != null) {
// we have a record
} else {
// the lookup succeeded, but no matching service
}
} else {
// lookup failed
}
})
discovery.getRecord(null, { ar ->
if (ar.succeeded()) {
if (ar.result() != null) {
// we have a record
} else {
// the lookup succeeded, but no matching service
}
} else {
// lookup failed
}
})
// Get a record by name
discovery.getRecord({ r ->
r.name == "some-name"
}, { ar ->
if (ar.succeeded()) {
if (ar.result() != null) {
// we have a record
} else {
// the lookup succeeded, but no matching service
}
} else {
// lookup failed
}
})
discovery.getRecord(json {
obj("name" to "some-service")
}, { ar ->
if (ar.succeeded()) {
if (ar.result() != null) {
// we have a record
} else {
// the lookup succeeded, but no matching service
}
} else {
// lookup failed
}
})
// Get all records matching the filter
discovery.getRecords({ r ->
"some-value" == r.metadata.getString("some-label")
}, { ar ->
if (ar.succeeded()) {
var results = ar.result()
// If the list is not empty, we have matching record
// Else, the lookup succeeded, but no matching service
} else {
// lookup failed
}
})
discovery.getRecords(json {
obj("some-label" to "some-value")
}, { ar ->
if (ar.succeeded()) {
var results = ar.result()
// If the list is not empty, we have matching record
// Else, the lookup succeeded, but no matching service
} else {
// lookup failed
}
})
You can retrieve a single record or all matching records with
getRecords
.
By default, record lookup does include only records with a status
set to UP
. This can be overridden:
-
when using JSON filter, just set
status
to the value you want (or*
to accept all status) -
when using function, set the
includeOutOfService
parameter totrue
ingetRecords
.
Retrieving a service reference
Once you have chosen the Record
, you can retrieve a
ServiceReference
and then the service object:
var reference1 = discovery.getReference(record1)
var reference2 = discovery.getReference(record2)
// Then, gets the service object, the returned type depends on the service type:
// For http endpoint:
var client = reference1.getAs(HttpClient.`class`)
// For message source
var consumer = reference2.getAs(MessageConsumer.`class`)
// When done with the service
reference1.release()
reference2.release()
Don’t forget to release the reference once done.
The service reference represents a binding with the service provider.
When retrieving a service reference you can pass a JsonObject
used to configure the
service object. It can contain various data about the service object. Some service types do not need additional
configuration, some require configuration (as data sources):
var reference = discovery.getReferenceWithConfiguration(record, conf)
// Then, gets the service object, the returned type depends on the service type:
// For http endpoint:
var client = reference.getAs(JDBCClient.`class`)
// Do something with the client...
// When done with the service
reference.release()
Types of services
A said above, the service discovery has the service type concept to manage the heterogeneity of the different services.
These types are provided by default:
-
HttpEndpoint
- for REST API’s, the service object is aHttpClient
configured on the host and port (the location is the url). -
EventBusService
- for service proxies, the service object is a proxy. Its type is the proxies interface (the location is the address). -
MessageSource
- for message sources (publisher), the service object is aMessageConsumer
(the location is the address). -
JDBCDataSource
- for JDBC data sources, the service object is aJDBCClient
(the configuration of the client is computed from the location, metadata and consumer configuration). -
RedisDataSource
- for Redis data sources, the service object is aRedis
(the configuration of the client is computed from the location, metadata and consumer configuration). -
MongoDataSource
- for Mongo data sources, the service object is aMongoClient
(the configuration of the client is computed from the location, metadata and consumer configuration).
This section gives details about service types in general and describes how to use the default service types.
Services with no type
Some records may have no type (ServiceType.UNKNOWN
). It is not possible to
retrieve a reference for these records, but you can build the connection details from the location
and
metadata
of the Record
.
Using these services does not fire service usage events.
HTTP endpoints
A HTTP endpoint represents a REST API or a service accessible using HTTP requests. The HTTP endpoint service
objects are HttpClient
configured with the host, port and ssl.
Publishing a HTTP endpoint
To publish a HTTP endpoint, you need a Record
. You can create the record using
HttpEndpoint.createRecord
.
The next snippet illustrates hot to create a Record
from
HttpEndpoint
:
var record1 = HttpEndpoint.createRecord("some-http-service", "localhost", 8433, "/api")
discovery.publish(record1, { ar ->
// ...
})
var record2 = HttpEndpoint.createRecord("some-other-name", true, "localhost", 8433, "/api", json {
obj("some-metadata" to "some value")
})
When you run your service in a container or on the cloud, it may not know its public IP and public port, so the publication must be done by another entity having this info. Generally it’s a bridge.
Consuming a HTTP endpoint
Once a HTTP endpoint is published, a consumer can retrieve it. The service object is a
HttpClient
with a port and host configured:
// Get the record
discovery.getRecord(json {
obj("name" to "some-http-service")
}, { ar ->
if (ar.succeeded() && ar.result() != null) {
// Retrieve the service reference
var reference = discovery.getReference(ar.result())
// Retrieve the service object
var client = reference.getAs(HttpClient.`class`)
// You need to path the complete path
client.get("/api/persons", { response ->
// ...
// Dont' forget to release the service
reference.release()
})
}
})
You can also use the
HttpEndpoint.getClient
method to combine lookup and service retrieval in one call:
HttpEndpoint.getClient(discovery, json {
obj("name" to "some-http-service")
}, { ar ->
if (ar.succeeded()) {
var client = ar.result()
// You need to path the complete path
client.get("/api/persons", { response ->
// ...
// Dont' forget to release the service
ServiceDiscovery.releaseServiceObject(discovery, client)
})
}
})
In this second version, the service object is released using
ServiceDiscovery.releaseServiceObject
,
so you don’t need to keep the service reference.
Since Vert.x 3.4.0, another client has been provided. This higher-level client, named WebClient
tends to be easier to use. You can retrieve a WebClient
instances using:
// Get the record
discovery.getRecord(json {
obj("name" to "some-http-service")
}, { ar ->
if (ar.succeeded() && ar.result() != null) {
// Retrieve the service reference
var reference = discovery.getReference(ar.result())
// Retrieve the service object
var client = reference.getAs(WebClient.`class`)
// You need to path the complete path
client.get("/api/persons").send({ response ->
// ...
// Dont' forget to release the service
reference.release()
})
}
})
And, if you prefer the approach using the service type:
HttpEndpoint.getWebClient(discovery, json {
obj("name" to "some-http-service")
}, { ar ->
if (ar.succeeded()) {
var client = ar.result()
// You need to path the complete path
client.get("/api/persons").send({ response ->
// ...
// Dont' forget to release the service
ServiceDiscovery.releaseServiceObject(discovery, client)
})
}
})
Event bus services
Event bus services are service proxies. They implement async-RPC services on top of the event bus. When retrieving
a service object from an event bus service, you get a service proxy of the right type. You can access helper
methods from EventBusService
.
Notice that service proxies (service implementations and service interfaces) are developed in Java.
Publishing an event bus service
To publish an event bus service, you need to create a Record
:
var record = EventBusService.createRecord("some-eventbus-service", "address", "examples.MyService", json {
obj("some-metadata" to "some value")
})
discovery.publish(record, { ar ->
// ...
})
Consuming an event bus service
To consume an event bus service you can either retrieve the record and then get the reference, or use the
EventBusService
interface that combines the two operations in one call.
Message source
A message source is a component sending messages on the event bus on a specific address. Message source clients are
MessageConsumer
.
The location or a message source service is the event bus address on which messages are sent.
Publishing a message source
As for the other service types, publishing a message source is a 2-step process:
-
create a record, using
MessageSource
-
publish the record
var record = MessageSource.createRecord("some-message-source-service", "some-address")
discovery.publish(record, { ar ->
// ...
})
record = MessageSource.createRecord("some-other-message-source-service", "some-address", "examples.MyData")
In the second record, the type of payload is also indicated. This information is optional.
Consuming a message source
On the consumer side, you can retrieve the record and the reference, or use the
MessageSource
class to retrieve the service is one call.
With the first approach, the code is the following:
// Get the record
discovery.getRecord(json {
obj("name" to "some-message-source-service")
}, { ar ->
if (ar.succeeded() && ar.result() != null) {
// Retrieve the service reference
var reference = discovery.getReference(ar.result())
// Retrieve the service object
var consumer = reference.getAs(MessageConsumer.`class`)
// Attach a message handler on it
consumer.handler({ message ->
// message handler
var payload = message.body()
})
}
})
When, using MessageSource
, it becomes:
MessageSource.getConsumer<JsonObject>(discovery, json {
obj("name" to "some-message-source-service")
}, { ar ->
if (ar.succeeded()) {
var consumer = ar.result()
// Attach a message handler on it
consumer.handler({ message ->
// message handler
var payload = message.body()
})
// ...
}
})
JDBC Data source
Data sources represents databases or data stores. JDBC data sources are a specialization for databases accessible
using a JDBC driver. The client of a JDBC data source service is a JDBCClient
.
Publishing a JDBC service
As for the other service types, publishing a JDBC data source is a 2-step process:
-
create a record, using
JDBCDataSource
-
publish the record
var record = JDBCDataSource.createRecord("some-data-source-service", json {
obj("url" to "some jdbc url")
}, json {
obj("some-metadata" to "some-value")
})
discovery.publish(record, { ar ->
// ...
})
As JDBC data sources can represent a high variety of databases, and their access is often different, the record is
rather unstructured. The location
is a simple JSON object that should provide the fields to access the data
source (JDBC url, username…). The set of fields may depend on the database but also on the connection pool used
in front.
Consuming a JDBC service
As stated in the previous section, how to access a data source depends on the data source itself. To build the
JDBCClient
, you can merge configuration: the record location, the metadata and a json object provided by
the consumer:
// Get the record
discovery.getRecord(json {
obj("name" to "some-data-source-service")
}, { ar ->
if (ar.succeeded() && ar.result() != null) {
// Retrieve the service reference
var reference = discovery.getReferenceWithConfiguration(ar.result(), json {
obj(
"username" to "clement",
"password" to "*****"
)
})
// Retrieve the service object
var client = reference.getAs(JDBCClient.`class`)
// ...
// when done
reference.release()
}
})
You can also use the JDBCClient
class to the lookup and retrieval in one call:
JDBCDataSource.getJDBCClient(discovery, json {
obj("name" to "some-data-source-service")
}, json {
obj(
"username" to "clement",
"password" to "*****"
)
}, { ar ->
if (ar.succeeded()) {
var client = ar.result()
// ...
// Dont' forget to release the service
ServiceDiscovery.releaseServiceObject(discovery, client)
}
})
Redis Data source
Redis data sources are a specialization for Redis persistence databases.
The client of a Redis data source service is a Redis
.
Publishing a Redis service
Publishing a Redis data source is a 2-step process:
-
create a record, using
RedisDataSource
-
publish the record
var record = RedisDataSource.createRecord("some-redis-data-source-service", json {
obj("url" to "localhost")
}, json {
obj("some-metadata" to "some-value")
})
discovery.publish(record, { ar ->
// ...
})
The location
is a simple JSON object that should provide the fields to access the Redis data
source (url, port…).
Consuming a Redis service
As stated in the previous section, how to access a data source depends on the data source itself. To build the
Redis
, you can merge configuration: the record location, the metadata and a json object provided by
the consumer:
// Get the record
discovery.getRecord(json {
obj("name" to "some-redis-data-source-service")
}, { ar ->
if (ar.succeeded() && ar.result() != null) {
// Retrieve the service reference
var reference = discovery.getReference(ar.result())
// Retrieve the service instance
var client = reference.getAs(Redis.`class`)
// ...
// when done
reference.release()
}
})
You can also use the RedisDataSource
class to the lookup and retrieval in one call:
RedisDataSource.getRedisClient(discovery, json {
obj("name" to "some-redis-data-source-service")
}, { ar ->
if (ar.succeeded()) {
var client = ar.result()
// ...
// Dont' forget to release the service
ServiceDiscovery.releaseServiceObject(discovery, client)
}
})
Mongo Data source
Mongo data sources are a specialization for MongoDB databases.
The client of a Mongo data source service is a MongoClient
.
Publishing a Mongo service
Publishing a Mongo data source is a 2-step process:
-
create a record, using
MongoDataSource
-
publish the record
var record = MongoDataSource.createRecord("some-data-source-service", json {
obj("connection_string" to "some mongo connection")
}, json {
obj("some-metadata" to "some-value")
})
discovery.publish(record, { ar ->
// ...
})
The location
is a simple JSON object that should provide the fields to access the Redis data
source (url, port…).
Consuming a Mongo service
As stated in the previous section, how to access a data source depends on the data source itself. To build the
MongoClient
, you can merge configuration: the record location, the metadata and a json object
provided by the consumer:
// Get the record
discovery.getRecord(json {
obj("name" to "some-data-source-service")
}, { ar ->
if (ar.succeeded() && ar.result() != null) {
// Retrieve the service reference
var reference = discovery.getReferenceWithConfiguration(ar.result(), json {
obj(
"username" to "clement",
"password" to "*****"
)
})
// Retrieve the service object
var client = reference.get<Any>()
// ...
// when done
reference.release()
}
})
You can also use the MongoDataSource
class to the lookup and retrieval in one call:
MongoDataSource.getMongoClient(discovery, json {
obj("name" to "some-data-source-service")
}, json {
obj(
"username" to "clement",
"password" to "*****"
)
}, { ar ->
if (ar.succeeded()) {
var client = ar.result()
// ...
// Dont' forget to release the service
ServiceDiscovery.releaseServiceObject(discovery, client)
}
})
Listening for service arrivals and departures
Every time a provider is published or removed, an event is published on the vertx.discovery.announce address.
This address is configurable from the ServiceDiscoveryOptions
.
The received record has a status
field indicating the new state of the record:
-
UP
: the service is available, you can start using it -
DOWN
: the service is not available anymore, you should not use it anymore -
OUT_OF_SERVICE
: the service is not running, you should not use it anymore, but it may come back later.
Listening for service usage
Every time a service reference is retrieved (bind
) or released (release
), an event is published on the vertx
.discovery.usage address. This address is configurable from the ServiceDiscoveryOptions
.
It lets you listen for service usage and map the service bindings.
The received message is a JsonObject
containing:
-
the record in the
record
field -
the type of event in the
type
field. It’s eitherbind
orrelease
-
the id of the service discovery (either its name or the node id) in the
id
field
This id
is configurable from the ServiceDiscoveryOptions
. By default it’s "localhost" on
single node configuration and the id of the node in clustered mode.
You can disable the service usage support by setting the usage address to null
with
setUsageAddress
.
Service discovery bridges
Bridges let you import and export services from / to other discovery mechanism such as Docker, Kubernetes, Consul… Each bridge decides how the services are imported and exported. It does not have to be bi-directional.
You can provide your own bridge by implementing the ServiceImporter
interface and
register it using
registerServiceImporter
.
The second parameter can provide an optional configuration for the bridge.
When the bridge is registered the start
method is called.
It lets you configure the bridge. When the bridge is configured, ready and has imported / exported the initial services, it must complete the given Future
.
If the bridge starts method is blocking, it must use an executeBlocking
construct, and complete the given future object.
When the service discovery is stopped, the bridge is stopped.
The close
method is called that provides the opportunity to cleanup resources, removed imported / exported services…
This method must complete the given Future
to notify the caller of the completion.
Notice than in a cluster, only one member needs to register the bridge as the records are accessible by all members.
Additional bridges
In addition of the bridges supported by this library, Vert.x Service Discovery provides additional bridges you can use in your application.
Unresolved directive in index.adoc - include::consul-bridge.adoc[]
Unresolved directive in index.adoc - include::kubernetes-bridge.adoc[]
Unresolved directive in index.adoc - include::zookeeper-bridge.adoc[]
Unresolved directive in index.adoc - include::docker-links-bridge.adoc[]
Additional backends
In addition of the backend supported by this library, Vert.x Service Discovery provides additional backends you can use in your application.
Unresolved directive in index.adoc - include::redis-backend.adoc[]