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@crichardson
Managing data consistency in a
microservice architecture using
Sagas
Chris Richardson
Founder of Eventuate.io
Founder of the original CloudFoundry.com
Author of Microservices Patterns and POJOs in Action
@crichardson
chris@chrisrichardson.net
http://learn.microservices.io
Copyright © 2019. Chris Richardson Consulting, Inc. All rights reserved
@crichardson
Presentation goal
ACID transactions
within services
Sagas between
services
@crichardson
About Chris
http://learn.microservices.io
@crichardson
About Chris
https://microservices.io/book
40% discount with code 	
ctwmicrocph19
@crichardson
Agenda
ACID is not an option
Overview of sagas
Coordinating sagas
The microservice architecture
structures
an application as a
set of loosely coupled
services
@crichardson
Loose coupling =
encapsulated data
Order Service Customer Service
Order Database Customer Database
Order table
Customer
table
orderTotal creditLimit
availableCredit
Change schema without coordinating with other teams
@crichardson
ACID transactions within
services are fine
Order Service Customer Service
Order Database Customer Database
Order table
Customer
table
orderTotal creditLimit
availableCredit
ACID transaction ACID transaction
@crichardson
But how to maintain data
consistency across services?
Order Service Customer Service
Order Database Customer Database
Order table
Customer
table
orderTotal creditLimit
availableCredit
?
@crichardson
Enforcing the customer’s credit limit
createOrder(customerId, orderTotal)
Pre-conditions:
• customerId is valid
Post-conditions
• Order was created
• Customer.availableCredit -= orderTotal
Customer class
Invariant:
availableCredit >= 0
availableCredit <= creditLimit
Spans
services
@crichardson
Cannot use ACID transactions
that span services
BEGIN TRANSACTION
…
SELECT ORDER_TOTAL
FROM ORDERS WHERE CUSTOMER_ID = ?
…
SELECT CREDIT_LIMIT
FROM CUSTOMERS WHERE CUSTOMER_ID = ?
…
… CHECK FOR SUFFICIENT CREDIT….
…
INSERT INTO ORDERS …
…
COMMIT TRANSACTION
Private to the
Order Service
Private to the
Customer Service
Distributed transactions
@crichardson
2PC is not an option
Guarantees consistency
BUT
2PC coordinator is a single point of failure
Chatty: at least O(4n) messages, with retries O(n^2)
Reduced throughput due to locks
Not supported by many NoSQL databases (or message brokers)
CAP theorem 2PC impacts availability
….
@crichardson
Basically
Available
Soft state
Eventually consistent
http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1394128
ACID
@crichardson
Agenda
ACID is not an option
Overview of sagas
Coordinating sagas
@crichardson
From a 1987 paper
@crichardson
Saga
Use Sagas instead of 2PC
Distributed transaction
Service A Service B
Service A
Local
transaction
Service B
Local
transaction
Service C
Local
transaction
X Service C
@crichardson
Order Service
Create Order Saga
Local transaction
Order
state=PENDING
createOrder()
Customer Service
Local transaction
Customer
reserveCredit()
Order Service
Local transaction
Order
state=APPROVED
approve
order()
createOrder() Initiates saga
@crichardson
Seems simple but …
@crichardson
Challenge: rollback
BEGIN TRANSACTION
…
UPDATE …
…
INSERT ….
…
…. BUSINESS RULE VIOLATED!!!!
…
ROLLBACK TRANSACTION
Really simple ACID
transaction!
Create Order
Reserve
Credit FAILS
Already committed.
How to undo?!
VS.
@crichardson
Rolling back sagas
Use compensating transactions
Developer must write application logic to “rollback” eventually
consistent transactions
Careful design required!
@crichardson
Saga: Every Ti has a Ci
T1 T2 …
C1 C2
Compensating transactions
T1 T2 C1
FAILS
@crichardson
Order Service
Create Order Saga - rollback
Local transaction
Order
createOrder()
Customer Service
Local transaction
Customer
reserveCredit()
Order Service
Local transaction
Order
reject
order()
createOrder()
FAIL
Insufficient credit
@crichardson
Writing compensating
transactions isn’t always easy
Write them so they will always succeed
If a compensating transaction fails no clear way to recover
Challenge: Undoing changes when data has already been
changed by a different transaction/saga
More on this later
Actions that can’t be undone, e.g. sending email
Reorder saga and move to end
Structure of Create Order
Saga
T1:
Create Order
C1:
Reject Order
T2:
Reserve Credit
T3:
Approve Order
Needs to be compensatable
because Reserve Credit can
fail
Last step that can fail: Does not
need compensation
Can’t fail
Saga structure: 3 phases
T1 C1
…
T2 C2
Tn+1
Tn+2
….
Compensatable transactions
Pivot transaction = GO/NO GO
Retriable transactions that can’t fail
and don’t need compensation
Great for actions that cannot be undone
Ordering the steps of a saga
Dependencies between
steps:
Result of one step is
used as input to next
e.g. Create Order before
Reserving Credit
But often you have a choice
Simplify by moving updates
to after pivot transaction
Update
Customer
Undo Update
Customer
…
Pivot Transaction
Update
Customer
…
Pivot Transaction
No compensation required
Reorder
@crichardson
Challenge: Sagas are ACD
Atomicity
Saga implementation ensures that all transactions are
executed OR all are compensated
Consistency
Referential integrity within a service handled by local databases
Referential integrity across services handled by application
Durability
Durability handled by local databases
@crichardson
Lack of I
Outcome of concurrent execution
!=
a sequential execution
=
Data anomalies
@crichardson
Anomaly: Lost update
Ti: Create
Order
Tj: Approve
Order
Ti: Cancel
Order
Saga 1
Create Order
Saga 2
Cancel order
Time
Overwrites
cancelled order
Also: A compensating transaction that simply restores
previous value can cause a lost update
@crichardson
Anomaly: Dirty reads
Ti: Reserve
Credit
Ci: Unreserve
credit
Ti: Reserve
Credit
Reads
uncommitted
changes
Order rejected unnecessarily OR Credit limit exceeded
Time
Saga 1
Create Order
Saga 2
Create Order
Ti: Reserve
InventoryX
Temporarily changed
@crichardson
Use countermeasures to
prevent anomalies
Use semantic lock to prevent lost updates
e.g. a PENDING order cannot be cancelled
Reorder saga to eliminate dirty reads caused by compensating transactions
Ci undoes changes made by Ti => possibility of dirty read
Eliminate Ci by moving update to (after) pivot transaction
Use commutative updates to eliminate lost updates caused by compensating
transactions
Customer.reserveCredit() and releaseCredit()
Account.debit() and credit()
…
https://www.slideshare.net/chris.e.richardson/saturn-2018-managing-data-consistency-in-a-microservice-architecture-using-sagas
@crichardson
Agenda
ACID is not an option
Overview of sagas
Coordinating sagas
@crichardson
How to sequence the saga
transactions?
After the completion of transaction Ti “something” must
decide what step to execute next
Success: which T(i+1) - branching
Failure: C(i - 1)
@crichardson
Use asynchronous, broker-
based messaging
Order Service
Customer
Service
….
Message broker
Guaranteed atleast once delivery ensures a saga
complete when its participants are temporarily unavailable
@crichardson
Saga step = a transaction local
to a service (a.k.a. participant)
Service
Database Message Broker
update Send message/event
How to
make atomic
without 2PC?*
*Transactional Outbox pattern or Event Sourcing
@crichardson
Choreography: distributed decision making
vs.
Orchestration: centralized decision making
@crichardson
Option #1: Choreography-based
coordination using events
Order
Service
Customer
Service
Order created
Credit Reserved
Credit Limit Exceeded
Create Order
OR
Customer
creditLimit
creditReservations
Order
state
total
create()
reserveCredit()
approve()/
reject()
Order events channel
Customer events channel
@crichardson
Order Service: publishing
domain events
Publish event
Create order
@crichardson
Customer Service: consuming
domain events…
https://github.com/eventuate-tram/eventuate-tram-examples-customers-and-orders
Subscribe to event
@crichardson
Customer Service: consuming
domain events
Attempt to
Reserve credit
Publish event on
success
Publish event on
failure
Benefits and drawbacks of
choreography
Benefits
Simple, especially when using event
sourcing
Participants are loosely coupled
Drawbacks
Decentralized implementation -
potentially difficult to understand
Cyclic dependencies - services listen
to each other’s events, e.g.
Customer Service must know about
all Order events that affect credit
Overloads domain objects, e.g.
Order and Customer know too
much
Events = indirect way to make
something happen
https://github.com/eventuate-examples/eventuate-examples-java-customers-and-orders
@crichardson
Order Service
Option #2: Orchestration-based saga
coordination
Local transaction
Order
state=PENDING
createOrder()
Customer Service
Local transaction
Customer
reserveCredit()
Order Service
Local transaction
Order
state=APPROVED
approve
order()
createOrder()
CreateOrderSaga
InvokesInvokesInvokes
@crichardson
A saga (orchestrator)
is a persistent object
that
implements a state machine
that
invokes the participants and
handles replies
Saga orchestrator behavior
On create:
Invokes a saga participant
Persists state in database
Wait for a reply
On reply:
Load state from database
Determine which saga
participant to invoke next
Invokes saga participant
Updates its state
Persists updated state
Wait for a reply
…
@crichardson
Order Service
CreateOrderSaga orchestrator
Customer Service
Create Order
Customer
creditLimit
creditReservations
...
Order
state
total…
reserveCredit
CreateOrder
Saga
OrderService
create()
create()
approve()
Credit Reserved
Customer command channel
Saga reply channel
https://github.com/eventuate-tram/eventuate-tram-sagas-examples-customers-and-orders
@crichardson
CreateOrderSaga definition
Sequence of
steps
step = (Ti, Ci)
Saga’s Data
@crichardson
Customer Service command
handler Route command
to handler
Reserve
credit
Make reply message
@crichardson
Eventuate Tram Sagas
Open-source Saga orchestration framework
Currently for Java
https://github.com/eventuate-tram/eventuate-tram-sagas
https://github.com/eventuate-tram/eventuate-tram-sagas-
examples-customers-and-orders
Benefits and drawbacks of
orchestration
Benefits
Centralized coordination
logic is easier to understand
Current state is in database
Reduced coupling, e.g.
Customer knows less
Reduces cyclic
dependencies
Drawbacks
Risk of smart sagas
directing dumb services
@crichardson
Summary
Microservices tackle complexity and accelerate development
Database per service is essential for loose coupling
Use ACID transactions within services
Use orchestration-based or choreography-based sagas to
maintain data consistency across services
Use countermeasures to reduce impact of anomalies caused
by lack of isolation
@crichardson
@crichardson chris@chrisrichardson.net
http://learn.microservices.io
Questions?
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MicroCPH - Managing data consistency in a microservice architecture using Sagas

  • 1. @crichardson Managing data consistency in a microservice architecture using Sagas Chris Richardson Founder of Eventuate.io Founder of the original CloudFoundry.com Author of Microservices Patterns and POJOs in Action @crichardson chris@chrisrichardson.net http://learn.microservices.io Copyright © 2019. Chris Richardson Consulting, Inc. All rights reserved
  • 5. @crichardson Agenda ACID is not an option Overview of sagas Coordinating sagas
  • 6. The microservice architecture structures an application as a set of loosely coupled services
  • 7. @crichardson Loose coupling = encapsulated data Order Service Customer Service Order Database Customer Database Order table Customer table orderTotal creditLimit availableCredit Change schema without coordinating with other teams
  • 8. @crichardson ACID transactions within services are fine Order Service Customer Service Order Database Customer Database Order table Customer table orderTotal creditLimit availableCredit ACID transaction ACID transaction
  • 9. @crichardson But how to maintain data consistency across services? Order Service Customer Service Order Database Customer Database Order table Customer table orderTotal creditLimit availableCredit ?
  • 10. @crichardson Enforcing the customer’s credit limit createOrder(customerId, orderTotal) Pre-conditions: • customerId is valid Post-conditions • Order was created • Customer.availableCredit -= orderTotal Customer class Invariant: availableCredit >= 0 availableCredit <= creditLimit Spans services
  • 11. @crichardson Cannot use ACID transactions that span services BEGIN TRANSACTION … SELECT ORDER_TOTAL FROM ORDERS WHERE CUSTOMER_ID = ? … SELECT CREDIT_LIMIT FROM CUSTOMERS WHERE CUSTOMER_ID = ? … … CHECK FOR SUFFICIENT CREDIT…. … INSERT INTO ORDERS … … COMMIT TRANSACTION Private to the Order Service Private to the Customer Service Distributed transactions
  • 12. @crichardson 2PC is not an option Guarantees consistency BUT 2PC coordinator is a single point of failure Chatty: at least O(4n) messages, with retries O(n^2) Reduced throughput due to locks Not supported by many NoSQL databases (or message brokers) CAP theorem 2PC impacts availability ….
  • 14. @crichardson Agenda ACID is not an option Overview of sagas Coordinating sagas
  • 16. @crichardson Saga Use Sagas instead of 2PC Distributed transaction Service A Service B Service A Local transaction Service B Local transaction Service C Local transaction X Service C
  • 17. @crichardson Order Service Create Order Saga Local transaction Order state=PENDING createOrder() Customer Service Local transaction Customer reserveCredit() Order Service Local transaction Order state=APPROVED approve order() createOrder() Initiates saga
  • 19. @crichardson Challenge: rollback BEGIN TRANSACTION … UPDATE … … INSERT …. … …. BUSINESS RULE VIOLATED!!!! … ROLLBACK TRANSACTION Really simple ACID transaction! Create Order Reserve Credit FAILS Already committed. How to undo?! VS.
  • 20. @crichardson Rolling back sagas Use compensating transactions Developer must write application logic to “rollback” eventually consistent transactions Careful design required!
  • 21. @crichardson Saga: Every Ti has a Ci T1 T2 … C1 C2 Compensating transactions T1 T2 C1 FAILS
  • 22. @crichardson Order Service Create Order Saga - rollback Local transaction Order createOrder() Customer Service Local transaction Customer reserveCredit() Order Service Local transaction Order reject order() createOrder() FAIL Insufficient credit
  • 23. @crichardson Writing compensating transactions isn’t always easy Write them so they will always succeed If a compensating transaction fails no clear way to recover Challenge: Undoing changes when data has already been changed by a different transaction/saga More on this later Actions that can’t be undone, e.g. sending email Reorder saga and move to end
  • 24. Structure of Create Order Saga T1: Create Order C1: Reject Order T2: Reserve Credit T3: Approve Order Needs to be compensatable because Reserve Credit can fail Last step that can fail: Does not need compensation Can’t fail
  • 25. Saga structure: 3 phases T1 C1 … T2 C2 Tn+1 Tn+2 …. Compensatable transactions Pivot transaction = GO/NO GO Retriable transactions that can’t fail and don’t need compensation Great for actions that cannot be undone
  • 26. Ordering the steps of a saga Dependencies between steps: Result of one step is used as input to next e.g. Create Order before Reserving Credit But often you have a choice Simplify by moving updates to after pivot transaction Update Customer Undo Update Customer … Pivot Transaction Update Customer … Pivot Transaction No compensation required Reorder
  • 27. @crichardson Challenge: Sagas are ACD Atomicity Saga implementation ensures that all transactions are executed OR all are compensated Consistency Referential integrity within a service handled by local databases Referential integrity across services handled by application Durability Durability handled by local databases
  • 28. @crichardson Lack of I Outcome of concurrent execution != a sequential execution = Data anomalies
  • 29. @crichardson Anomaly: Lost update Ti: Create Order Tj: Approve Order Ti: Cancel Order Saga 1 Create Order Saga 2 Cancel order Time Overwrites cancelled order Also: A compensating transaction that simply restores previous value can cause a lost update
  • 30. @crichardson Anomaly: Dirty reads Ti: Reserve Credit Ci: Unreserve credit Ti: Reserve Credit Reads uncommitted changes Order rejected unnecessarily OR Credit limit exceeded Time Saga 1 Create Order Saga 2 Create Order Ti: Reserve InventoryX Temporarily changed
  • 31. @crichardson Use countermeasures to prevent anomalies Use semantic lock to prevent lost updates e.g. a PENDING order cannot be cancelled Reorder saga to eliminate dirty reads caused by compensating transactions Ci undoes changes made by Ti => possibility of dirty read Eliminate Ci by moving update to (after) pivot transaction Use commutative updates to eliminate lost updates caused by compensating transactions Customer.reserveCredit() and releaseCredit() Account.debit() and credit() … https://www.slideshare.net/chris.e.richardson/saturn-2018-managing-data-consistency-in-a-microservice-architecture-using-sagas
  • 32. @crichardson Agenda ACID is not an option Overview of sagas Coordinating sagas
  • 33. @crichardson How to sequence the saga transactions? After the completion of transaction Ti “something” must decide what step to execute next Success: which T(i+1) - branching Failure: C(i - 1)
  • 34. @crichardson Use asynchronous, broker- based messaging Order Service Customer Service …. Message broker Guaranteed atleast once delivery ensures a saga complete when its participants are temporarily unavailable
  • 35. @crichardson Saga step = a transaction local to a service (a.k.a. participant) Service Database Message Broker update Send message/event How to make atomic without 2PC?* *Transactional Outbox pattern or Event Sourcing
  • 36. @crichardson Choreography: distributed decision making vs. Orchestration: centralized decision making
  • 37. @crichardson Option #1: Choreography-based coordination using events Order Service Customer Service Order created Credit Reserved Credit Limit Exceeded Create Order OR Customer creditLimit creditReservations Order state total create() reserveCredit() approve()/ reject() Order events channel Customer events channel
  • 38. @crichardson Order Service: publishing domain events Publish event Create order
  • 39. @crichardson Customer Service: consuming domain events… https://github.com/eventuate-tram/eventuate-tram-examples-customers-and-orders Subscribe to event
  • 40. @crichardson Customer Service: consuming domain events Attempt to Reserve credit Publish event on success Publish event on failure
  • 41. Benefits and drawbacks of choreography Benefits Simple, especially when using event sourcing Participants are loosely coupled Drawbacks Decentralized implementation - potentially difficult to understand Cyclic dependencies - services listen to each other’s events, e.g. Customer Service must know about all Order events that affect credit Overloads domain objects, e.g. Order and Customer know too much Events = indirect way to make something happen https://github.com/eventuate-examples/eventuate-examples-java-customers-and-orders
  • 42. @crichardson Order Service Option #2: Orchestration-based saga coordination Local transaction Order state=PENDING createOrder() Customer Service Local transaction Customer reserveCredit() Order Service Local transaction Order state=APPROVED approve order() createOrder() CreateOrderSaga InvokesInvokesInvokes
  • 43. @crichardson A saga (orchestrator) is a persistent object that implements a state machine that invokes the participants and handles replies
  • 44. Saga orchestrator behavior On create: Invokes a saga participant Persists state in database Wait for a reply On reply: Load state from database Determine which saga participant to invoke next Invokes saga participant Updates its state Persists updated state Wait for a reply …
  • 45. @crichardson Order Service CreateOrderSaga orchestrator Customer Service Create Order Customer creditLimit creditReservations ... Order state total… reserveCredit CreateOrder Saga OrderService create() create() approve() Credit Reserved Customer command channel Saga reply channel https://github.com/eventuate-tram/eventuate-tram-sagas-examples-customers-and-orders
  • 47. @crichardson Customer Service command handler Route command to handler Reserve credit Make reply message
  • 48. @crichardson Eventuate Tram Sagas Open-source Saga orchestration framework Currently for Java https://github.com/eventuate-tram/eventuate-tram-sagas https://github.com/eventuate-tram/eventuate-tram-sagas- examples-customers-and-orders
  • 49. Benefits and drawbacks of orchestration Benefits Centralized coordination logic is easier to understand Current state is in database Reduced coupling, e.g. Customer knows less Reduces cyclic dependencies Drawbacks Risk of smart sagas directing dumb services
  • 50. @crichardson Summary Microservices tackle complexity and accelerate development Database per service is essential for loose coupling Use ACID transactions within services Use orchestration-based or choreography-based sagas to maintain data consistency across services Use countermeasures to reduce impact of anomalies caused by lack of isolation