Microservices Communication: Feign as Rest Client


In the previous microservice tutorial, we have learned How Microservice communicates with each other using RestTemplate. In this tutorial, we will learn How one microservice communicates with Other via Feign Client . This is the third part of Microservice Communication series.



What is a Feign Client?

Netflix provides Feign as an abstraction over Rest-based calls, by which Microservice can communicate with each other, But developers don’t have to bother about Rest internal details.

Why we use Feign Client?

In my previous tutorial, When EmployeeDashBoard service communicate with EmployeeService, Programmatically we had constructed the URL of dependent Microservice-- then call the service Using RestTemplate so we need to aware about the RestTemplate API to communicate with other microservice, which is certainly not part of our Business logic-- So question is Why should developer has  to know details of  Rest- API, Microservice developers only concentrate on Business logic so Spring Address this issues and comes with Feign Client which works on  declarative principle . We have to create an Interface/contract then Spring creates the original implementation on the fly so Rest-based service call is abstracted from developers. Not only that if you want to customize the call like Encode your request or decode the response in a Custom Object, Logging -- you can do it by Feign in a declarative way.  Feign a client is an important tool for Microservice developer to communicate with other Microservices via Rest API.


spring boot microservices--FeignClient






Coding Time:


Here we will alter our EmployeeDashborad Service to make it Feign enable;
Step 1 : we will add feign dependency into EmployeeDashBoard Service.

<dependency>
          <groupId>org.springframework.cloud</groupId>
          <artifactId>spring-cloud-starter-feign</artifactId>
    </dependency>

Step 2: Now, We have to create an Interface where we declare the services which we wanted to call, Please note that the Service Request mapping is same as  EmployeeSerach Service Rest URL. Feign will call this URL when we call EmployeeDashBorad service.

Feign dynamically generate the Implementation of the interface which  we created , So Feign has to know which service to call before hand that's why we need to give a name of the interface which is the {Service-Id} of Employee Service, Now Feign contact to Eureka server with this Service Id and resolve the actual Ip/Host name of the Employee Service and call the URL provided in Request Mapping.
NB : when using @PathVariable for Feign Client use value property always unless it will give you the error java.lang.IllegalStateException: PathVariable annotation was empty on param 0


package com.example.EmployeeDashBoardService.controller;

import java.util.Collection;

import org.springframework.cloud.netflix.feign.FeignClient;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.PathVariable;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;

import com.example.EmployeeDashBoardService.domain.model.EmployeeInfo;



@FeignClient(name="EmployeeSearch" )//Service Id of EmployeeSerach service
public interface EmployeeServiceProxy {
   
   @RequestMapping("/employee/find/{id}")
   public EmployeeInfo findById(@PathVariable(value="id") Long id);
   
   @RequestMapping("/employee/findall")
   public Collection<EmployeeInfo> findAll();

}

Step 3 : Now we will create a FeignEmployeeInfoController where we autowired our Interface so in runtime Spring can Inject actual implementation, then we call that implementation to call EmployeeService Rest API.

package com.example.EmployeeDashBoardService.controller;

import java.util.Collection;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.cloud.context.config.annotation.RefreshScope;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.PathVariable;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;

import com.example.EmployeeDashBoardService.domain.model.EmployeeInfo;

@RefreshScope
@RestController
public class FeignEmployeeInfoController {
   
   @Autowired
   EmployeeServiceProxy proxyService;
   
   @RequestMapping("/dashboard/feign/{myself}")
   public EmployeeInfo findme(@PathVariable Long myself){
      return proxyService.findById(myself);
     
   }
   
   @RequestMapping("/dashboard/feign/peers")
   public  Collection<EmployeeInfo> findPeers(){
        return proxyService.findAll();
   }

}


Step 4: At Last , we need to tell our project that we will use Feign client so please scan it’s annotation. For this , we need to add @EnableFeignClients annotation on top of
EmployeeDashBoardServiceApplication

package com.example.EmployeeDashBoardService;

import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.web.client.RestTemplateBuilder;
import org.springframework.cloud.client.discovery.EnableDiscoveryClient;
import org.springframework.cloud.netflix.feign.EnableFeignClients;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
import org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate;

@EnableDiscoveryClient
@EnableFeignClients
@SpringBootApplication
public class EmployeeDashBoardServiceApplication {

   public static void main(String[] args) {
      SpringApplication.run(EmployeeDashBoardServiceApplication.class, args);
   }
   
   @Bean
   public RestTemplate restTemplate(RestTemplateBuilder builder) {
      return builder.build();
   }
}


Now we are all set for use Feign client.

Testing Time:

Start the following Microservices in order.

  1. EmployeeConfigServer
  2. EmployeeEurekaServer
  3. EmpolyeeSerachService.
  4. EmployeeDashBoardService


Now hit the url  http://localhost:8081/dashboard/feign/peers in browser

You will see following output

[
   {
      "employeeId": 1,
      "name": "Shamik  Mitra",
      "practiceArea": "Java",
      "designation": "Architect",
      "companyInfo": "Cognizant"
   },
   {
      "employeeId": 2,
      "name": "Samir  Mitra",
      "practiceArea": "C++",
      "designation": "Manager",
      "companyInfo": "Cognizant"
   },
   {
      "employeeId": 3,
      "name": "Swastika  Mitra",
      "practiceArea": "AI",
      "designation": "Sr.Architect",
      "companyInfo": "Cognizant"
   }
]

Microservices Communication: Service to service

Microservices Communication: Service to service

In the previous microservice tutorial, we have learned How Microservice communicates with the service registry. In this tutorial, we will learn How one microservice communicates with another dependent microservice service via the Service Registry/Eureka Server. This is the second part of Microservice Communication series.


Let see the sequence How One Microservice calls another Microservice using Eureka server.

Registering Service: All Microservices should be registered into Service registry with a Unique name {service-id}, So it can be identified please note that it is an important step as one of the main benefits of Microservice is autoscaling so we can’t rely on Hostname/Ip address so Unique name is important in distributed environment.

Fetching Registry: Before calling the downstream/dependent service Caller service fetch the registry from Eureka server, Registry contains all the active services register into service registry.

Find the Downstream service: Now using the unique service Id caller service get the instance of downstream service.

Resolve Underlying IP address : Please note the Iniques service id act as a Key in service registry but network does not know about it network expects Hostname to call the desired Rest Endpoint on the dependent service like(localhost:8080/employee/{id} or employee.cognizant,com/2 etc) so it is required to resolve the actual hostname of the dependent service Eureka API provides a method for that we just invoke that method to get the Ip address, For a distributed system it is the public IP of Load balancer.

Call the Rest Endpoint: After resolving the IP address using Spring Resttemplate we call the actual Rest endpoint and got the data.








 microservices communication


Coding Time :

For this example we need Three Microservices Project

  1. Employee Search Service : Which we created earlier for searching Employee information.
  2. Eureka Server : Also ,we created this earlier we will reuse that same application
  3. Employee Dashboard Service : We will create this module and call the Employee Search service via Eureka server to get Employee information.




Step 1:Create a service called EmployeeSearchSearch.java  where I  insert some employee using static block and using Java 8 Stream after that I add two methods findById and findAll to display Employee information accordingly.



package com.example.EmployeeSearchService.service;

import java.util.Collection;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.stream.Collectors;
import java.util.stream.Stream;

import org.springframework.stereotype.Service;

import com.example.EmployeeSearchService.domain.model.Employee;

@Service
public class EmployeeSearchService {

   private static Map<Long, Employee> EmployeeRepsitory = null;

   static {

      Stream<String> employeeStream = Stream.of("1,Shamik  Mitra,Java,Architect", "2,Samir  Mitra,C++,Manager",
              "3,Swastika  Mitra,AI,Sr.Architect");

      EmployeeRepsitory = employeeStream.map(employeeStr -> {
          String[] info = employeeStr.split(",");
          return createEmployee(new Long(info[0]), info[1], info[2], info[3]);
      }).collect(Collectors.toMap(Employee::getEmployeeId, emp -> emp));

   }

   private static Employee createEmployee(Long id, String name, String practiceArea, String designation) {
      Employee emp = new Employee();
      emp.setEmployeeId(id);
      emp.setName(name);
      emp.setPracticeArea(practiceArea);
      emp.setDesignation(designation);
      emp.setCompanyInfo("Cognizant");
      return emp;
   }

   public Employee findById(Long id) {
      return EmployeeRepsitory.get(id);
   }

   public Collection<Employee> findAll() {
      return EmployeeRepsitory.values();
   }

}







Step 2: Now add a new controller called EmployeeSearchController expose two endpoints by which other services can call findById and findAll method. findById takes Employee Id and returns the Employee Domain Object.

package com.example.EmployeeSearchService.controller;

import java.util.Collection;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.cloud.context.config.annotation.RefreshScope;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.PathVariable;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;

import com.example.EmployeeSearchService.domain.model.Employee;
import com.example.EmployeeSearchService.service.EmployeeSearchService;

@RefreshScope
@RestController
public class EmployeeSearchController {
   
   @Autowired
   EmployeeSearchService employeeSearchService;

   @RequestMapping("/employee/find/{id}")
   public Employee findById(@PathVariable Long id){
      return employeeSearchService.findById(id);
   }
   
   @RequestMapping("/employee/findall")
   public Collection<Employee> findAll(){
      return employeeSearchService.findAll();
   }
}


Employee Domain Object

package com.example.EmployeeSearchService.domain.model;

public class Employee {
   private Long employeeId;
   private String name;
   private String practiceArea;
   private String designation;
   private String companyInfo;
   public Long getEmployeeId() {
      return employeeId;
   }
   public void setEmployeeId(Long employeeId) {
      this.employeeId = employeeId;
   }
   public String getName() {
      return name;
   }
   public void setName(String name) {
      this.name = name;
   }
   public String getPracticeArea() {
      return practiceArea;
   }
   public void setPracticeArea(String practiceArea) {
      this.practiceArea = practiceArea;
   }
   public String getDesignation() {
      return designation;
   }
   public void setDesignation(String designation) {
      this.designation = designation;
   }
   public String getCompanyInfo() {
      return companyInfo;
   }
   public void setCompanyInfo(String companyInfo) {
      this.companyInfo = companyInfo;
   }
   @Override
   public String toString() {
      return "Employee [employeeId=" + employeeId + ", name=" + name + ", practiceArea=" + practiceArea
              + ", designation=" + designation + ", companyInfo=" + companyInfo + "]";
   }
   
   
   

}





Step 3: Create an EmployeeDashBoard application by downloading the template for this, I choose following modules actuator, config client, web, Jersey, EurekaClient.


Now put @EnableDiscoveryClient on top of EmployeeDashBoardApplication class. To treat this module as Eureka Client and add RestTemplate as a Spring Bean.



package com.example.EmployeeDashBoardService;

import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.web.client.RestTemplateBuilder;
import org.springframework.cloud.client.discovery.EnableDiscoveryClient;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
import org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate;

@EnableDiscoveryClient
@SpringBootApplication
public class EmployeeDashBoardServiceApplication {

   public static void main(String[] args) {
      SpringApplication.run(EmployeeDashBoardServiceApplication.class, args);
   }
   
   @Bean
   public RestTemplate restTemplate(RestTemplateBuilder builder) {
      return builder.build();
   }
}







Also, rename the application.properties to bootstrap properties and write the following properties.
spring.application.name=EmployeeDashBoard
spring.cloud.config.uri=http://localhost:9090
eureka.client.serviceUrl.defaultZone:http://localhost:9091/eureka
server.port=8081
security.basic.enable: false   
management.security.enabled: false




Step 4: Now create a Controller called EmployeeInfoController , and call the  Service Registry then find the EmployeeSerchService by passing the service-id of the Employee Service see (EmpoyeeService-> bootstrap.properties)
Now call IpAdress method to resolve Ip address and call the dependent service using RestTemplate.

package com.example.EmployeeDashBoardService.controller;

import java.nio.file.Path;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Collection;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Value;
import org.springframework.cloud.context.config.annotation.RefreshScope;
import org.springframework.http.HttpMethod;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.PathVariable;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;
import org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate;

import com.example.EmployeeDashBoardService.domain.model.EmployeeInfo;
import com.netflix.appinfo.InstanceInfo;
import com.netflix.discovery.EurekaClient;
import com.netflix.discovery.shared.Application;

@RefreshScope
@RestController
public class EmployeeInfoController {
   
    @Autowired
    private RestTemplate restTemplate;
   
    @Autowired
    private EurekaClient eurekaClient;
   
    @Value("${service.employyesearch.serviceId}")
    private String employeeSearchServiceId;


   @RequestMapping("/dashboard/{myself}")
   public EmployeeInfo findme(@PathVariable Long myself){
      Application application = eurekaClient.getApplication(employeeSearchServiceId);
       InstanceInfo instanceInfo = application.getInstances().get(0);
       String url = "http://"+instanceInfo.getIPAddr()+ ":"+instanceInfo.getPort()+"/"+"employee/find/"+myself;
       System.out.println("URL" + url);
       EmployeeInfo emp = restTemplate.getForObject(url, EmployeeInfo.class);
       System.out.println("RESPONSE " + emp);
       return emp;
   }
   
   @RequestMapping("/dashboard/peers")
   public  Collection<EmployeeInfo> findPeers(){
      Application application = eurekaClient.getApplication(employeeSearchServiceId);
       InstanceInfo instanceInfo = application.getInstances().get(0);
       String url = "http://"+instanceInfo.getIPAddr()+ ":"+instanceInfo.getPort()+"/"+"employee/findall";
       System.out.println("URL" + url);
       Collection<EmployeeInfo> list= restTemplate.getForObject(url, Collection.class);
        System.out.println("RESPONSE " + list);
       return list;
   }
}






Then Up the services in following Order

  1. Start config server.
  2. Start Eureka Server.
  3. Start Employee Search Service.
  4. Start Employee DashBoard Service.


When all services are Up-- hit http://localhost:9091 in browswer you will see all services are up and Running

microservice tutorial
Add caption



Then hit the following URL http://localhost:8081/dashboard/2
You will see the Following Output.

{"employeeId":2,"name":"Samir  Mitra","practiceArea":"C++","designation":"Manager","companyInfo":"Cognizant"}