A proposal to find and agree on a common protocol to discover services

[marcellanz]

Hi there👋 @viktorklang @jroper @pvlugter @jboner

Cloudstate is in limbo and not much is going on with the project. At eigr.io originaly we're based on the protocol Cloudstate is based on, but we will not stay compatible, especially because of Cloudstates current condition as an open source project.

At the moment, eigr/massa is probably the most compatible implementation of the Cloudstate protocol, beside the reference implementation itself. Akka Serverless seems to be incompatible with Cloudstate.

In an effort to support open protocols in the space of serverless runtimes, we propose to find and agree on a common protocol definition that enables runtimes to discover services and determine if a deployed service is compatible. In the case of the current three projects that are based on Cloudstate, with Cloudstate itself, we propose to agree on a common protocol definition for the discovery service to start with.

We hope, that with this step, the legacy of Cloudstate, even if not evolved itself, can be preserved as a reference and partly can be a spec that others can build on. We're aware and expect that implementations like Akka Serverless and eigr.io are and will diverge further in terms of their entities types and implementation compatibilty. Saying this, we would welcome if some of the entity types with their state- or action-models can be compatible in the future. This proposal would be a common ground for such a compatibility.

At the moment, we don't think staying compatible with Cloudstate enables us to go forward with eigr.io, so we pursue evolving the protocol. If we find common ground on this proposal, we hope different serverless runtimes based on Cloudstate in the future can coexist and even collaborate in their common believes what serverless can be and where it can evolve to.

Yours sincerely, the team at eigr.io

[sleipnir]

The silence....

[jboner]

Hi guys. We’re sorry it took us so long to reply!

We are excited to see you taking inspiration from Cloudstate into the new open source project eigr.io and will try to follow along as it evolves.

Standardizing the discovery protocol for services is a great idea. Very few, if any, standards exist in the serverless world, and efforts in this area are important but also quite hard and expensive to pull off. Right now, we’re still heading down on bringing Akka Serverless to market as a commercial offering, and as such, we currently cannot afford the investment in the area you propose.

Again, we’re excited to see your own project come to life and we’ll be cheering you on from the sidelines. Thanks, Jonas.

[marcellanz]

Thanks @jboner for answering and explaining your position. I propose to let this issue open and whenever you're ready to focus on this topic, let us know and then go forward with it. Good luck with Akka Serverless in the meantime; we're following that effort similarly all along. Regards, Marcel.

[sleipnir]

Thanks @jboner for answering. Good luck in your business.

[jboner]

Thanks a lot, @marcellanz and @sleipnir.