Temporal: open-source microservices orchestration platform • Hacker News Board

Re: Temporal: open-source microservices orchestration platform

#21

Post by rytemporal » Sun, Oct 18, 2020, 3:34 PM UTC

sgt wrote: post #12

How would it work with existing HashiCorp tech like Nomad?

It’s a very valid question but it’s just a bit timely since Mitchell tweeted a few days ago about how most of HashiCorp cloud is built on Temporal tech.

Disclaimer: head of product at Temporal. Temporal is not container orchestration and is not an infrastructure management tool. In most cases users run Temporal on top of Kubernetes.

Temporal provides a distributed experience which is decoupled from the reliability of any specific piece of hardware. We provide a programming model for writing distributed applications without needing to code around all points of failure. We still are working on what to call the tech exactly, it’s not something that is widely known by any name today. It’s sort of like virtualized distributed computing.

Re: Temporal: open-source microservices orchestration platform

#22

Post by mfateev » Sun, Oct 18, 2020, 3:35 PM UTC

acjohnson55 wrote: post #2

I am super excited about Temporal. I think one of the biggest underacknowledged problems in business software is the way executional details pervade business logic. As soon as your critical logic doesn't simply exist in a request-response logic, it becomes fragmented over queues, scheduled jobs, ETLs, microservices, functions, etc. The actual processes that matter become Rube Goldberg machines that are hard to unders…

I'm original founder of Cadence project and now CEO of Temporal. AMA.

Re: Temporal: open-source microservices orchestration platform

#23

Post by mfateev » Sun, Oct 18, 2020, 3:40 PM UTC

lazydon wrote: post #11

acjohnson55 wrote: post #2

I am super excited about Temporal. I think one of the biggest underacknowledged problems in business software is the way executional details pervade business logic. As soon as your critical logic doesn't simply exist in a request-response logic, it becomes fragmented over queues, scheduled jobs, ETLs, microservices, functions, etc. The actual processes that matter become Rube Goldberg machines that are hard to unders…

It's interesting that you mention workflows and serverless together. In this regard, have you looked at things like AWS Step Functions and Azure Logic Apps? You get the best of both worlds - state machines with excellent workflow management tools along with the flexibility and cost effectiveness of AWS Lambda in the background. Talking of "Serverless Revolution", I think we are going to see more of such abstractions…

IMHO the best of both worlds is Azure Durable Functions.

Re: Temporal: open-source microservices orchestration platform

#24

Post by birdiesanders » Sun, Oct 18, 2020, 3:51 PM UTC

mfateev wrote: post #22

acjohnson55 wrote: post #2

I am super excited about Temporal. I think one of the biggest underacknowledged problems in business software is the way executional details pervade business logic. As soon as your critical logic doesn't simply exist in a request-response logic, it becomes fragmented over queues, scheduled jobs, ETLs, microservices, functions, etc. The actual processes that matter become Rube Goldberg machines that are hard to unders…

I'm original founder of Cadence project and now CEO of Temporal. AMA.

Thanks for the awesome work over the years!

Re: Temporal: open-source microservices orchestration platform

#25

Post by bbbobbb » Sun, Oct 18, 2020, 4:17 PM UTC

hestefisk wrote: post #13

Has anyone here used it for anything serious? Looks interesting but also a lot of buzzwords...

I agree about the buzzwords. We have deployed a core service developed with Temporal recently and it seems to deliver on its promises. I am looking forward to using it more. Once it 'clicks' you begin to see how the workflow model matches many business processes, which cannot be handled within a single request, or an event, very well.

Re: Temporal: open-source microservices orchestration platform

#26

Post by acjohnson55 » Sun, Oct 18, 2020, 4:20 PM UTC

bencollier49 wrote: post #4

acjohnson55 wrote: post #2

I am super excited about Temporal. I think one of the biggest underacknowledged problems in business software is the way executional details pervade business logic. As soon as your critical logic doesn't simply exist in a request-response logic, it becomes fragmented over queues, scheduled jobs, ETLs, microservices, functions, etc. The actual processes that matter become Rube Goldberg machines that are hard to unders…

You might be interested in looking into Camunda, which does similar things. It's very quick and easy to set up detailed process flows which model and track multi-step transactions via microservices. It also has a great visual interface using BPMN for understanding where your processes are in a flow. I don't see anything like that in Temporal. https://camunda.com/why-camunda/ Incidentally, an iteration of Camunda call…

I've heard of Camunda from reading this excellent article [1], but I havent' looked too deeply into it yet.

BPMN vs code is something we have considered. Our workflow engine works more like state machines as code, which is kind of the worst of both worlds. The business processes get fragmented into logic for each state, and mixed with imperative effects, so its neither easy to see the process nor maintain the code.

The nice thing about BPMN is that it's probably a bit more learnable by the subject matter experts who ultimately determine what the correct business process should be. However, having seen some pretty monstrous process flowcharts, my guess is that it probably doesn't scale past a certain level of process complexity. I suspect that workflow-as-code is ultimately the more scalable option.

[1] https://www.infoq.com/articles/events-workflow-automation/

Re: Temporal: open-source microservices orchestration platform

#27

Post by acjohnson55 » Sun, Oct 18, 2020, 4:25 PM UTC

lazydon wrote: post #11

acjohnson55 wrote: post #2

I am super excited about Temporal. I think one of the biggest underacknowledged problems in business software is the way executional details pervade business logic. As soon as your critical logic doesn't simply exist in a request-response logic, it becomes fragmented over queues, scheduled jobs, ETLs, microservices, functions, etc. The actual processes that matter become Rube Goldberg machines that are hard to unders…

It's interesting that you mention workflows and serverless together. In this regard, have you looked at things like AWS Step Functions and Azure Logic Apps? You get the best of both worlds - state machines with excellent workflow management tools along with the flexibility and cost effectiveness of AWS Lambda in the background. Talking of "Serverless Revolution", I think we are going to see more of such abstractions…

Before I'd ever heard of the concept of a "workflow engine", I looked into step functions, thinking that was exactly the solution I was looking for. But when I started studying them, it was apparent to me that they suffer from the exact same problem of fragmentation of logical processes. In my ideal world, the breaks between steps in a process look much more like `await`s in a process that is modeled by a single function, and not like a hard split between steps.

Re: Temporal: open-source microservices orchestration platform

#28

Post by mfateev » Sun, Oct 18, 2020, 4:32 PM UTC

birdiesanders wrote: post #24

mfateev wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm original founder of Cadence project and now CEO of Temporal. AMA.

Thanks for the awesome work over the years!

Thank you for all the support! Without the incredible community, the project wouldn't be where it is today.

Re: Temporal: open-source microservices orchestration platform

#29

Post by mfateev » Sun, Oct 18, 2020, 4:53 PM UTC

acjohnson55 wrote: post #26

bencollier49 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be interested in looking into Camunda, which does similar things. It's very quick and easy to set up detailed process flows which model and track multi-step transactions via microservices. It also has a great visual interface using BPMN for understanding where your processes are in a flow. I don't see anything like that in Temporal. https://camunda.com/why-camunda/ Incidentally, an iteration of Camunda call…

I've heard of Camunda from reading this excellent article [1], but I havent' looked too deeply into it yet. BPMN vs code is something we have considered. Our workflow engine works more like state machines as code, which is kind of the worst of both worlds. The business processes get fragmented into logic for each state, and mixed with imperative effects, so its neither easy to see the process nor maintain the code. T…

Look at how Temporal represents workflows as code. It doesn't use any intermediate representation like DAG or state machine. It executes your code directly as a synchronous program with blocking operations taking as long as necessary to execute. For example the following code would be absolutely valid as a Temporal workflow:

    waitForApproval(purchase); 
    sleep(Duration.ofDays(30));
    sendEmail(email);

Re: Temporal: open-source microservices orchestration platform

#30

Post by acjohnson55 » Sun, Oct 18, 2020, 5:05 PM UTC

mfateev wrote: post #29

acjohnson55 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard of Camunda from reading this excellent article [1], but I havent' looked too deeply into it yet. BPMN vs code is something we have considered. Our workflow engine works more like state machines as code, which is kind of the worst of both worlds. The business processes get fragmented into logic for each state, and mixed with imperative effects, so its neither easy to see the process nor maintain the code. T…

Look at how Temporal represents workflows as code. It doesn't use any intermediate representation like DAG or state machine. It executes your code directly as a synchronous program with blocking operations taking as long as necessary to execute. For example the following code would be absolutely valid as a Temporal workflow: waitForApproval(purchase); sleep(Duration.ofDays(30)); sendEmail(email);

Yep. This is why I'm so interested in it!