Distributed Spring Integration

Recently, I was given an opportunity to code a use case that required the need to use EIP in a distributed environment. While trying to use the "Splitter" and "Aggregator" patterns, I had a chance to review the source code implementation of many of the components used to implement these using Spring Integration.


Highly recommended reading:

• http://presos.dsyer.com/decks/locks-and-leaders.html
• https://github.com/SpringOnePlatform2016/dsyer-locks-and-leaders
• http://martin.kleppmann.com/2016/02/08/how-to-do-distributed-locking.html

Several points that helped my design implementation using "distributed locks":

• Distributed locks always have a "shelf life" (so it's really a "lease")
• Expiration of a "lock" is essential.
• Use an EIP framework that supports components that remain simple.
• Potential need to move deployments models to a platform environment following a microservices architecture.

So keeping these in mind, Spring Integration fit well. The key objects used were:

• LockRegistry
• LockRepository
• MessageStore

Both XML and Spring POJO Configuration style worked well for managing these via Spring Profiles, and thanks to Spring Boot, keeping these simple was a breeze.