martin anderson - threads v actors
DESCRIPTION
Slides from my lightning presentation from the London Java Community Open Conference Nov 2011TRANSCRIPT
LIGHTNING TALK REPLACING THREADS WITH ACTORS FOR CONCURRENT WEB APPLICATION SERVICE CALLS Martin Anderson LJC Open Conference 2011
CONCURRENT SERVICE CALLS
• Most web pages need data from multiple sources
• Scatter/Gather approach to perform all the service calls in parallel then rendering the responses
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CONCURRENCY MODEL
dispatch service calls
controller’s job done
rendering starts early
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THREADS
• Well understood (if not always well implemented!)
• java.util.concurrent library eases the pain • Resource usage?
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ACTORS
• Been around since 1973 • Erlang popularised usage • Actor library for Java? Akka! • Most strongly associated with Scala but
has a Java API
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USING AN EXECUTOR SERVICE IN A SERVLET
public void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws…{
List<MyServiceCallable> myServiceCallables = new ArrayList<MyServiceCallable>();
for (int ii = 0; ii < 10; ii++) { myServiceCallables.add(new MyServiceCallablle(remoteClient)); }
List<Future<String>> futures = executorService.invokeAll(myServiceCallables);
… for (Future future : futures) { writer.write( future.get() ); }
… }
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USING AKKA ACTORS IN A SERVLET
public void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws…{
Works works = new Works(); for (int ii = 0; ii < 10; ii++) {
works.add(new Work())); } masterActor.tell(works);
List<Future<String>> futures = works.getFutures();
… for (Future future : futures) { writer.write( future.get() ); }
… }
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SO WHAT’S IN AN ACTOR 1?
public class MasterActor extends UntypedActor { private ActorRef router; static class LoadBalancer extends UntypedLoadBalancer { private final InfiniteIterator<ActorRef> workers; public LoadBalancer(ActorRef[] workers) { this.workers =
new CyclicIterator<ActorRef>(asList(workers)); } public InfiniteIterator<ActorRef> seq() { return workers; } }
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SO WHAT’S IN AN ACTOR 2?
public MasterActor(final int numWorkers, final RemoteClient remoteClient) { // create an array of started workers final ActorRef[] workers = new ActorRef[numWorkers]; for (int i = 0; i < numWorkers; i++) { workers[i] = actorOf( new UntypedActorFactory() { public UntypedActor create() { return new WorkerActor(remoteClient); } }) .start(); } // wrap all the workers with a load-balancing router router = actorOf(new UntypedActorFactory() { public UntypedActor create() { return new LoadBalancer(workers); } }).start(); }
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SO WHAT’S IN AN ACTOR 3?
// message handler in MasterActor public void onReceive(Object message) { if (message instanceof Works) { for (Work work : ((Works) message).getAll()) { router.tell(work); } } }
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SO WHAT’S IN AN ACTOR 4?
public class WorkerActor extends UntypedActor { RemoteClient remoteClient; public WorkerActor(RemoteClient remoteClient) { this.remoteClient = remoteClient; } @Override public void onReceive(Object message) throws Exception { if (message instanceof Work) { Work work = (Work) message; remoteClient.execute(work); } } }
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SO WHAT’S IN OUR REMOTECLIENT?
public void execute(final Work work) throws IOException {
ContentExchange exchange = new ContentExchange() { protected void onResponseComplete() throws IOException {
super.onResponseComplete(); String responseContent = this.getResponseContent(); work.setFutureResponse(responseContent); } }; //set the method and the url exchange.setMethod("GET"); exchange.setURL(work.getUrl()); // start the exchange httpClient.send(exchange);
}
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SO WHY USE AKKA/ACTORS
• More resource efficient for certain jobs • Easier for mere mortals to reason with • Nested supervisors can restart failed actors • Supports STM if required
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THANK YOU
https://github.com/bloodredsun/ConcurrentWebAppExample
Email: [email protected] Twitter: @mdjanderson Blog: http://bloodredsun.com/ Betfair Blog: http://views.betfair.com/
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