• road to orleans
  • build & run
  • monitoring
  • code
  • further reading

road to orleans

This repository illustrates the road to orleans with practical, real-life examples as .NET solutions. From most basic, to more advanced techniques. The code is written using .NET 5 and was tested on MacOS (Catalina 10.15.7) and, wherever docker is supported, Linux (Alpine 3.12).

build & run

• IDE: build + run (first the cluster, then the client)
• run-[client/silo]-[docker/local].sh

monitoring

Silo dashboards are available by default on localhost:8080 unless configured otherwise in the code/dockerfile/run-[client/silo]-[docker/local].sh. Additionally, Datadog APM support is illustrated in solution 3b.

code

solution	description	docker support	clustering	clustered silos	grains	clients	*visual studio code support	*remote containers support
solution1	One basic silo, no grains.	✅	-	1	0	0	✅	✅
solution2	One basic silo, one grain, one console client.	-	-	1	1 C# grain	1 - console	✅	✅
solution3	One basic silo, one grain, one console client, everything containerized.	✅	-	1	1 C# grain	1 - console	✅	✅
solution3a	Solution3 + grain persistence.	✅	-	1	1 C# grain	1 - console	✅	✅
solution3b	Solution3 + datadog APM.	✅	-	1	1 C# grain	1 - console	✅	✅
solution4	First in-memory clustering example. Many silos, many clients.	✅	in-memory	n	1 C# grain	n - console	✅	✅
solution5	Solution4 where the grain interfaces F# library code. Additionally, F# unit tests covering the F# library code.	✅	in-memory	n	1 C# grain interfacing F# library code.	n - console
solution6	Solution5 where the cluster is being called from a Web API.	✅	in-memory	n	1 C# grain interfacing F# library code	n - web api
solution7	Solution6 + FeatureManagement, dependency injection in grains, unit tests for grains using OrleansTestKit.	✅	in-memory	n	1 C# grain interfacing F# library code	n - web api
solution8	Solution7 + Persistent Membership Table in DynamoEB, ECS hosting, CloudFormation Template.	✅	Dynamo	n	1 C# grain interfacing F# library code	n - web api

*visual studio code support:

• [ctrl/cmd]+shift+b: builds selected projects
• f5: runs selected projects

*remote containers support: ability to develop/build/run/debug code inside containers. This is to support those who just want to quickly pull the repository code and experiment with it with e.g. Visual Studio Code. Code + batteries included.

further reading

• https://gitter.im/road-to-orleans/community - road to orleans gitter
• https://github.com/dotnet/orleans - orleans repository
• https://dotnet.github.io/orleans/ - orleans documentation
• https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Orleans20Best20Practices.pdf - orleans best practices
• https://gitter.im/dotnet/orleans/ - orleans gitter
• https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Orleans-MSR-TR-2014-41.pdf - virtual actors paper
• https://github.com/OrleansContrib - orbiting repositories (e.g. orleans dashboard)
• https://github.com/PiotrJustyna/FeatureManagementSandbox - more involved use cases for FeatureManagement

to watch

• https://youtu.be/GKXiGhFBd90 - observability: logs, tracing, metrics
• https://youtu.be/R0ODfwU6MzQ - orleans: deep dive