microservices-workspace

Example local setup for developing heterogeneous microservices.

In this setup we show:

1. A microservcie written in Go and set up with code hot-reloading for comfortable development.
2. A microservice written in Node and similarly set up with code hot-reloading
3. A Traefik-based frontend reverse-proxy wiring microservices to various routes so that the clients don't need to know about, and/or hardcode their calls against, multiple ports the microservices actualy serve from.
4. Resilient set-up of database that a microservice can use (MySQL for the sake of the demo). Database setup uses Docker volumes and survives container restarts/crashes.
5. Each microservice is checked into their own Git repository. This main repository you are currently viewing simply orchestrates creation of a single "workspace" point, from which all developers can grab the entire project and easily build it.

This approach allows developers to easily switch between working on just a specific microservice and a larger "project space".

As systems get large you may want to have more than one project space. That is a decision you would take based on your unique needs. However, this blueprint workspace provides a lot of recipes to get you on the journey of breaking-up and composing work as you see fit and creating an enjoyable, yet simple development workspace.

Prerequisites:

A working Docker setup, which you can get pretty easily for most major platforms like Mac, Windows and Linux flavors: https://www.docker.com/community-edition#/download

Installing

To run the entire project with all microservices and databases:

> git clone https://github.com/inadarei/microservices-workspace.git && cd microservices-workspace

# Bring everything up in daemon mode: 
> make

# Make sure everything started fine:
> make ps

To tear-down the project:

> make stop

Using

Once everything is properly installed various microservices can be accessed at sub-routes of the front-end reverse proxy's URI. In the out-of-the-box installation, you get two microservices respectively at:

> curl http://ms-demo-node-ms-workspace-demo.docker.localhost:9080/
# and
> curl http://ms-demo-golang-ms-workspace-demo.docker.localhost:9080/

Please note that "ms-demo-node-ms-workspace-demo" and "ms-demo-golang-ms-workspace-demo" are the automatically-detected hostnames (subdomains) generated from the microservice container names (ms-demo-node and ms-demo-golang) and the Docker project namespace: ms-workspace-demo.

These hostname can be overwritten using more specific labels in the docker-compose file of corresponding microservices, for example by placing something like the following in ms-demo-node/docker-compose.yaml:

labels:
    - "traefik.http.routers.ms-demo-node.rule=Host(`demonode.docker.localhost`)"

which would allow demo node microservice to be available by invoking a shorter URL, along the lines of: curl http://demonode.docker.localhost:9080/

If you want the project to run on a port different from 9080, you can change the value in the topmost dockor-compose.yml. For instance, to make it run on port 80:

ports:
  - "80:80"

Service Discovery – Traefik

Q: How are microservices discovered by the front-end proxy?

A: The workspace uses a modern, highly capable proxy: Traefik which automatically discovers services in your project and wires them up to the proper sub-routes.

Once you have the project up, you can access the web UI of the proxy at: http://0.0.0.0:9880/

How to add more microservices:

• Edit config/repos.json

• Run make update in the topmost repository to get the new codebase

• Edit start.sh and stop.sh scripts under ./bin to add start and stop commands for the new module. Existing commands should be used as a guide.

• Make sure the docker-compose file for the service has labels required by Traefik

  example: https://github.com/inadarei/microservices-workspace-ms-demo-node/blob/master/docker-compose.yml#L6)

• Make sure the docker-compose commands are starting your new service in the same project as the Traefik and the rest of the services

  example: https://github.com/inadarei/microservices-workspace-ms-demo-node/blob/master/Makefile#L3