amebo 0.1.2

HTTP Event Notifications Server - Asynchronous Communication Engine

AMEBO

Amebo is the simplest pubsub server to use, deploy, understand or maintain. It was built to enable communication between applications i.e. microservices or modules (if you are using monoliths), and hopes to be able to serve as a small but capable and simpler alternative to Kafka, RabbitMQ, SQS/SNS.

STILL IN DEVELOPMENT: NOT READY FOR Production Use

 

How It Works

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Amebo has only 4 concepts (first class objects) to understand or master.

 

1. Microservices/Modules

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These are applications or modules you register on amebo - they send and receive events ;-)

2. Events

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Something that can happen in an application, they are registered on Amebo by Microservices/Modules

3. Actions

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A HTTP request sent to Amebo to signal an event (action on event) has occured. Usually has a payload that is forwarded by Amebo to all applications subscribed to the offending event

4. Subscribers

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HTTP endpoints registered to watch specific/particular events (by Microservices/Modules)

 

GETTING STARTED

This assumes you have installed Amebo on your machine. Amebo requires Python3.6+

# the easy path
pip install amebo
amebo --workers 2 --address 0.0.0.0:8701


# the hardway (manual installation) BUT not the only way... Sorry, I couldn't resist the pun ;-)
git clone https://github.com/tersoo/amebo
mv amebo /to/a/directory/of/your/choosing
export $PATH=$PATH:/to/a/directory/of/your/choosing/amebo  # add amebo location to your path
ambeo -w 2 -a 0.0.0.0:8701

 

1st : Tell Amebo about all your microservices or applications

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endpoint: /v1/microservices

Schema	Example Payload
{ "$schema": "", "type": "object", "properties": { "microservice": {"type": "string"}, "passkey": {"type": "string", "format": "ipv4 | ipv6 | hostname | idn-hostname"}, "location": {"type": "web"} }, "required": ["microservice", "passkey", "location"] }	{ "microservice": "customers", "passkey": "some-super-duper-secret-of-the-module-or-microservice", "location": "http://0.0.0.0:3300" }

 

2nd : Register events that can happen in the registered microservices

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endpoint: /v1/events

Endpoint JSON Schema	Example Payload
{ "type": "object", "properties": { "event": {"type": "string"}, "microservice": {"type": "string"}, "schemata": { "type": "object", "properties": { "type": {"type": "string"}, "properties": {"type": "object"}, "required": {"type": "array"} } } }, "required": ["event", "microservice", "schemata"] }	{ "event": "customers.v1.created", "microservice": "customers", "schemata": { "$id": "https://your-domain/customers/customer-created-schema-example.json", "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema", "type": "object", "properties": { "customer_id": {"type": "number"}, "first_name": {"type": "string"}, "last_name": {"type": "string"}, "email": {"type": "string", "format": "email"} }, "required": ["customer_id", "email"] } }

 

3rd : Tell Amebo when an event occurs i.e. create an action

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endpoint: /v1/actions

Key	Description
event	Identifier name of the event. (As registered in the previous step.)
deduper	Deduplication string. used to prevent the same action from being registered twice
payload	JSON data (must confirm to the schema registerd with the event)

 

Endpoint JSON Schema	Example Payload
{ "type": "object", "properties": { "event": {"type": "string"}, "microservice": {"type": "string"}, "schemata": { "type": "string", "format": "ipv4 | ipv6 | hostname | idn-hostname" }, "location": {"type": "web"} }, "required": ["microservice", "passkey", "location"] }	{ "event": "customers.v1.created", "microservice": "customers", "schema": { "$id": "https://your-domain/customers/customer-created-schema-example.json", "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema", "type": "object", "properties": { "event": {"type": "string"}, "microservice": {"type": "string"}, "schemata": {"type": "string", "format": "ipv4 | ipv6 | hostname | idn-hostname"}, "location": {"type": "web"} }, "required": ["microservice", "passkey", "location"] }, "location": "http://0.0.0.0:3300" }

 

Finally: Create an endpoint to receive action notifications from Amebo

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Other applications/modules within the same monolith can create handler endpoints that will be sent the payload with optional encryption if an encryption key was provided by the subscriber when registering for the event.

Why? Advantages over traditional Message Oriented Middleware(s)

1. Amebo comes complete with a Schema Registry, ensuring actions conform to event schema, and makes it easy for developers to search for events by microservice with commensurate schema (i.e. what is required, what is optional) as opposed to meetings with team mates continually.

2. GUI for tracking events, actions, subscribers. Easy discovery of what events exist, what events failed and GUI retry for specific subscribers

3. Gossiping is HTTP native i.e. subscribers receive http requests automatically at pre-registered endpoints

4. Infinite retries (stop after $MAX_RETRIES and $MAX_MINUTES coming soon)

Trivia

The word amebo is a West African (Nigerian origin - but used in Ghana, Benin, Cameroon etc.) slang used to describe anyone that never keeps what you tell them to themselves. A talkative, never mind their business individual (a chronic gossip).