Event-Driven Architecture (EDA) vs Request/Response (RR)

In this video, Adam Bellemare compares and contrasts Event-Driven and Request-Driven Architectures to give you a better idea of the tradeoffs and benefits involved with each.

Many developers start in the synchronous request-response (RR) world, using REST and RPC to build inter-service communications. But tight service-to-service coupling, scalability, fan-out sensitivity, and data access issues can still remain.

In contrast, Event-Driven Architectures (EDA) provide a powerful way to decouple services in both time and space, letting you subscribe and react to the events that matter most for your line of business.

RELATED RESOURCES

CHAPTERS
00:00 - Intro
01:04 - Reactivity
02:11 - Coupling in Space and Time
03:20 - Consistency
04:32 - Historical State
06:36 - Architectural Flexibility
09:09 - Data Access and Data Reuse
10:56 - Summary

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ABOUT CONFLUENT

#eventdrivenarchitecture #apachekafka #kafka #confluent #rest #rpc

[ConfluentDevXTeam]

Adam here. I took a crack at explaining some of the key differences between two popular interservice architectures. Let me know what you think, and if there are any other videos you'd like to see.

[kapilpatel]

Kapil here, more of a .NET development exp with zero Kafka use in past. I learned 10% from video and another 90% from the comments, wow thanks Adam. I now have to checkout what else you and your team have created for me to learn. Hope to learn and use it in near future.

[Fikusiklol]

Hello, Adam!
I absolutely love and admire your effort (and other Confluent speakers) in making these very complex topics so easy to understand and grasp.

Absolute best out there. Laconic an informative. Big thanks!

[alizeynalov]

thank you, Adam. An amazing, short but very valuable video. Please continue enlighting us more. Also, I feel that this way of presenting is much better than not seeing the tutor, just the whiteboard. It makes me feel engaged.

[joshflugel]

Bro explains so crystal clear, he can write in reverse from behind a transparent blackboard.

[iChrisBirch]

Very well explained and the diagrams helped a lot. Great pacing, I didn't get lost in words and didn't feel like I need to play on 1.5x speed like a lot of videos. I liked the lecture style of this vs many 'content creators' that have visually beautiful videos with animations and graphics that in the end distract from the topic. Great job!

[dream_emulator]

Amazing explanation! Thanks for this 👍😃

[freeborn]

Well done. The only thing I can think of, which I can't recall hearing in the video, is that event driven architectures are not completely decoupled, just more decoupled than request/responses architectures. They are coupled on the data exchange contract, for example.

[adamtimus]

Adam! great and clear explanation of trade offs! keep it up! - Adam

[mr.daniish]

Adam drops another knowledge bomb! Respect

[jacobwwarner]

Nice video. I never thought that general REST API Request-Response systems were different from EDA Microservices.

[joelmamedov]

The request/response can be build with a full consistency. I suppose that craft , mainly transactional management is forgotten or limitation of service based architecture.

[TheNoahHein]

Amazing video! Question about your setup, have you been teaching yourself to write backwards? My mind doesn’t quite wrap around how this video is filmed, it looks like the transparent “whiteboard” is in front, with you behind it writing.

[gulhermepereira]

Hi, Adam. Thank you for the great explanation, but there's another important part missing : the cost. Could you please go over that for the following videos?

[reneschindhelm]

Do you keep the entire history of events (1 create, N update, maybe 1 delete event) for each and every document/object/… in those topics? How does that affect storage/performance over time? Or is there some way to compress/discard past events, say f.e. by regularly creating snapshots of the state?

[andriimed]

I'd call the structure of the talk more as a promo, rather than a try to identify the difference.
If you start thinking at some point, can I do the same things in req/resp? The answer is often yes, with no or little effort.
I've heard somewhere that the answer of what to use depends on whether answer from the service is needed or not. If yes -> req/resp, otherwise -> EDA can be used. But this definition is quite vague sadly, and, as always, depends on the case.
Anyway, a good talk, thanks.

[AlanGramont]

Your storefront probably should NOT be rewriting order changes that have reached complete. They should create a modification record. The view of the order will be a merged view of the original record and all modified records. In a document database, this is one collection showing the "current" order representing the merge and a table of changes over time. The changes can be differences but it also could just be the complete order as a second record with a version. In this way, the storefront can always provide order history without needing to pull it from external sources.

[B-Billy]

Absulutely amazing explanation!! Could you make a video on Kafka, why it is so fast and relieable?

[mohammadshweiki]

My question is about his setup, the board he is using to write in front of the camera is an Acrylic board correct? can anyone correct me if am wrong here? and what is the best marker to use
I do deliver online training and consultation and I want to use the same method

[ajitnandakumar]

Hi Adam, On Reactivity, I understand the difference in Async vs Req/response, but what is the conclusion and difference in reactivity between the two architectures. This was not clear.