BuzzBlog is an open-source microblog application for the performance study of microservice-based systems. As with Twitter, users can write posts, follow other users, and like posts.
The API Gateway is an HTTP server that receives calls to the BuzzBlog API from clients, makes RPCs to backend microservices, and replies JSON-encoded data back to the clients. The BuzzBlog API Reference shows the parameters of HTTP requests and the attributes of HTTP responses for each API endpoint.
BuzzBlog functionalities are implemented by backend services with small scope, conforming to the microservice architectural style.
- account implements functions to access and manage user accounts;
- post implements functions to access and manage posts;
- like implements functions to access and manage likes of posts;
- follow implements functions to access and manage follows of accounts;
- uniquepair implements functions to access and manage sets of unique pairs (an abstract data type);
- trending implements functions to access and manage trending hashtags;
- wordfilter implements functions to filter out invalid words.
BuzzBlog data is stored in PostgreSQL databases. Also, a Redis server stores the data structure that ranks the popularity of hashtags.
BuzzBlog has an API organized around REST -- standard HTTP authentication and methods control accesses and updates to objects through predictable URLs.
A call to the BuzzBlog API starts with the client sending an HTTP request to the
API Gateway. Then, the API Gateway accesses and updates objects through RPCs to
microservices. Microservices commonly query a Postgres database or Redis server
to retrieve and update data of their own domains. Some microservices call other
microservices to retrieve and update data of other domains. For example,
function retrieve_expanded_account of the account microservice queries a
PostgreSQL database to retrieve account information and calls microservices
post, like, and follow to retrieve the posting, liking, and following
activities of that account. Finally, the API Gateway sends an HTTP response back
to the client containing JSON-encoded data.
- Rodrigo Alves Lima (ral@gatech.edu)
Copyright (C) 2022 Georgia Tech Center for Experimental Research in Computer Systems.
Licensed under the Apache License 2.0.