TorqueBox for Rubyists

TorqueBoxEnterprise-Grade Ruby Application ServerBob McWhirter

Asheville.rbAsheville, North Carolina

2 December 2009

Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0

Bob McWhirter

• Started in C++

• Moved to Java with JDK 1.1.8

• Began Ruby and Rails in 2005

• Lived in Asheville for 4 years

• Did some open-source along the way

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Open-Source

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Currently

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Bob

Java

Linux

+

+

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== Ruby?

Actual R&D

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I get to actually research things, and develop new stuff. Honest-to-goodness technology R&D investment.

TorqueBox

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...in a nutshell

What is it?

A merging of the Ruby language with the Java Virtual Machine.

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Why bother?

As Ruby matures, it’s quickly being used to solve larger, more difficult problems.

Problems we’ve solved in the enterprise with Java already.

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Such as...?

• Scalability

• Efficient & asynchronous messaging

• Scheduled jobs

• Telephony

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Scalability...because “Rails doesn’t scale”

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Web Scalability

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mongrel-style

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Ruby

mongrel

mongrel-style

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Ruby

mongrel

Ruby

mongrel

Ruby

mongrel

Ruby

mongrel

httpd

mongrel-style

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Ruby

mongrel

Ruby

mongrel

Ruby

mongrel

Ruby

mongrel

httpd

passenger style

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Rails

Rails

Rails

Rails

RubyPassengerhttpd

Conservative Spawning

passenger style

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Worker

Worker

Worker

Worker

RailsRubyPassengerhttpd

Smart Spawning

TorqueBox style

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RailsRuby

TorqueBox

http

queues

scheduler

MyApp

Clustering

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Multiplicity rocks.

Concerns

When clustering, we care about sessions and load balancing.

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Sessions

With multiple application servers, sessions must be shared, or session affinity must be used.

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Session Sharing

Sharing sessions requires using a central store, such as memcached or ActiveRecord session stores.

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Session Sharing

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memcached

Worker

Worker

Worker

Worker

Session Sharing

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But what if the central session store is unavailable, or overwhelmed?

Single point of failure!

Session Sharing

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memcached

Worker

Worker

Worker

Worker

Session Affinity

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Session affinity is making sure the same back-end server handles all of Todd’s requests.

Todd’sserver

Session Affinity

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Worker

Worker

Worker

Worker

BalancerTodd

Session Affinity

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But what if the back-end server handling Todd’s requests becomes unavailable?

Session Affinity

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Worker

Worker

Worker

Worker

Balancer

Todd’sserver

Todd

Use Both!

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Use session affinity when you can, but allow workers to replicate session information when necessary.

Use Both!

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Cache

Cache

Cache

CacheWorker

Worker

Worker

Worker

Balancer

Spanning Hosts

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Host

Host

Host

Host

Cache

Cache

Cache

CacheWorker

Worker

Worker

Worker

Balancer

Balancer in the cluster

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Using mod_cluster for Apache httpd, the balancer participates in the cluster view.

mod_cluster

As server nodes join and leave the cluster, the balancer (mod_cluster) is aware of these changes.

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mod_proxy_ajp

The Apache JServ Protocol (AJP) is an efficient pipeline for shuffling HTTP requests to a Java application-server for handling.

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Oh yeah...

• Multiple apps per server or cluster.

• Virtual-host support baked in.

• Context-path support.

• Full Rack support (bare, Sinatra, etc).

• Full Java-EE stack.

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And bundles

myapp.rails myapp.rack

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And bundles

Single ZIP file bundle of an app. Easily move specific artifact between staging and production.

Required for cluster auto-farming deployment.

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Rails scales!...but there’s more than just port 80.

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Task QueuesSimply install Erlang, set up RabbitMQ, use an AMQP gem...

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Or just use TorqueBox...and just write a Ruby class.

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app/queues/**_queue.rb

• A class per queue.

• A method per task handled by the queue.

• A simple API to toss stuff around.

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my_first_queue.rb

class MyFirstQueue

include TorqueBox::Queues::Base

def task_one(payload={})

o = Thing.find_by_id( payload[:thing_id] )

o.frob!

o.save!

end

end

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my_first_queue.rb

class MyFirstQueue

include TorqueBox::Queues::Base

def task_one(payload={})

o = Thing.find_by_id( payload[:thing_id] )

o.frob!

o.save!

end

end

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my_first_queue.rb

class MyFirstQueue

include TorqueBox::Queues::Base

def task_one(payload={})

o = Thing.find_by_id( payload[:thing_id] )

o.frob!

o.save!

end

end

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my_first_queue.rb

class MyFirstQueue

include TorqueBox::Queues::Base

def task_one(payload={})

o = Thing.find_by_id( payload[:thing_id] )

o.frob!

o.save!

end

end

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my_first_queue.rb

class MyFirstQueue

include TorqueBox::Queues::Base

def task_one(payload={})

o = Thing.find_by_id( payload[:thing_id] )

o.frob!

o.save!

end

end

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Enqueue

TorqueBox::Queues.enqueue( ‘MyFirstQueue’, :task_one, { :thing_id=>42 })

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Enqueue

TorqueBox::Queues.enqueue( ‘MyFirstQueue’, :task_one, { :thing_id=>42 })

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Enqueue

TorqueBox::Queues.enqueue( ‘MyFirstQueue’, :task_one, { :thing_id=>42 })

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Enqueue

TorqueBox::Queues.enqueue( ‘MyFirstQueue’, :task_one, { :thing_id=>42 })

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Enqueue

Use from your controllers, ActiveRecord observers, or other queues.

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Enqueueclass User < ActiveRecord::Base has_attached_file :avatar, ... after_save do |user| TorqueBox::Queues.enqueue( :image_processor_queue, :process_user_avatar, user.id ) if user.avatar_needs_processing? endend

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Enqueueclass User < ActiveRecord::Base has_attached_file :avatar, ... after_save do |user| TorqueBox::Queues.enqueue( :image_processor_queue, :process_user_avatar, user.id ) if user.avatar_needs_processing? endend

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Enqueueclass User < ActiveRecord::Base has_attached_file :avatar, ... after_save do |user| TorqueBox::Queues.enqueue( :image_processor_queue, :process_user_avatar, user.id ) if user.avatar_needs_processing? endend

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Enqueueclass User < ActiveRecord::Base has_attached_file :avatar, ... after_save do |user| TorqueBox::Queues.enqueue( :image_processor_queue, :process_user_avatar, user.id ) if user.avatar_needs_processing? endend

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Queue Benefits

• No additional systems or languages to setup and maintain.

• Clustering/HA available (including durable messages).

• No explicit queue configuration required.

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Scheduled JobsJust write a script, and a crontab, and deploy it with your app. Don’t forget to undeploy and update it also. And check cron.log for errors.

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Or just use TorqueBox...and just write a Ruby class.

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app/jobs/**.rb

• A class per queue.

• A method called run()

• Configure it via jobs.yml

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my_first_job.rbclass MyFirstJob include TorqueBox::Jobs::Base

def run() subscriptions = Subscription.find(:all) subscriptions.each do |e| send_newsletter( e ) end endend

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my_first_job.rbclass MyFirstJob include TorqueBox::Jobs::Base

def run() subscriptions = Subscription.find(:all) subscriptions.each do |e| send_newsletter( e ) end endend

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my_first_job.rbclass MyFirstJob include TorqueBox::Jobs::Base

def run() subscriptions = Subscription.find(:all) subscriptions.each do |e| send_newsletter( e ) end endend

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my_first_job.rbclass MyFirstJob include TorqueBox::Jobs::Base

def run() subscriptions = Subscription.find(:all) subscriptions.each do |e| send_newsletter( e ) end endend

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config/jobs.yml

subscription.mailer: description: send out newsletters job: MyFirstJob cron: 20 7 1 * * ?

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config/jobs.yml

subscription.mailer: description: send out newsletters job: MyFirstJob cron: 20 7 1 * * ?

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config/jobs.yml

subscription.mailer: description: send out newsletters job: MyFirstJob cron: 20 7 1 * * ?

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config/jobs.yml

subscription.mailer: description: send out newsletters job: MyFirstJob cron: 20 7 1 * * ?

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config/jobs.yml

subscription.mailer: description: send out newsletters job: MyFirstJob cron: 20 7 1 * * ?

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config/jobs.yml

20 7 1 * * ?

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secmin

hourd.o.m.

mond.o.y

config/jobs.yml

20 7 1 * * ?

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Every day,

at 1:07:20 am

• Uses existing Ruby interpreter when jobs fire. No waiting for Ruby/Rails to load.

• No external system (crontab) to maintain.

• No additional daemons to monitor (daemonize)

• Full Rails environment (AR models, queues, lib/)

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Scheduler Benefits

TelephonyJust... um... something... with Asterisk?

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Or just use TorqueBox...and just write a Ruby class.

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Initiate Calls

By doing SIP magic, your application can initiate calls, or connect multiple parties.

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Press 2 to STFU

Using the Media Server, automated messages, interactive voice response (IVR) and other advanced systems can be built.

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OMGWTFBBQPONIES!

Have your app (for instance, upon

successful job completion) fire off an SMS.

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Telephony Benefits

•It’s just freakin’ cool.

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ManageabilityOkay, sorta speculative, forward-looking dreaming, but...

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Manageable

Everything ultimately maps to a managed object within the Java application-server.

We have the JOPR management console.

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But not yet

But we haven’t exposed everything in a super nice fashion. Yet.

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All-in-OneEverything’s in the tin.Everything works together.

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More information...http://torquebox.org/

http://github.com/torquebox

http://twitter.com/torquebox

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Thanks +

Q&A

84Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0