Video and slides synchronized, mp3 and slide download available at URL http://bit.ly/1Csfk7Z. Shobana Radhakrishnan shares details about best practices adopted in implementing API integration with third party services, how to manage change and deal with failures. Filmed at qconsf.com. Shobana Radhakrishnan is responsible for technology and engineering execution at Mindflash Technologies Inc, a cloud-hosted Learning Management System, where she is Vice President of Engineering.

1. November 2014
Managing Service Integration for High
Uptime In a Lean Startup
Shobana Radhakrishnan
Vice President of Engineering, Mindflash

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Watch the video with slide
synchronization on InfoQ.com!
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/api-integration-services

3. Purpose of QCon
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Strategy
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Highlights
- attended by more than 12,000 delegates since 2007
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Presented at QCon San Francisco
www.qconsf.com

4. Agenda
• Services at Scale
• Mindflash Customer API
• Mindflash Integration with External Services
• Approach and Lessons Learned
2

5. Questions
• How do you manage service deployment for
high uptime and quality?
• How can you guarantee high uptime when
relying on several external services?
• How can you do these in a lean startup?
3

6. Mindflash At a Glance
4
Mindflash App
Mindflash
Customer API
Services
Course Videos
Player
Developer
ManagerTrainer/P
rospect

7. Lean Startup**
5
**Eric Weis: http://theleanstartup.com/principles

8. Lean Startup Principles at Mindflash
• Minimum Viable Product
(MVP)
• Ship Frequently
• Monitor Outcome
• Iterate
6

9. Typical Constraints
• Budget
• Resources
• High Release
Frequency
7

10. Monolithic vs. Microservices
Monolithic
• N-tier Application
• Code dependencies
• Shared database
• Larger units of deployment
Microservices
• Independent services
• Easier to manage and
deploy
• Loose Coupling
8

11. Our Journey
• Started with a monolithic service – FLEX, .NET
• Independent service and middle layers
• Shared database with read rep
• 20+ external services -> microservices
architecture
9

12. Our Goals
• Uptime and Response Time
• High website performance
• Low error rates
10

13. Key Metrics for Mindflash
• Course Creation Rate
• Course Completion Rate
• Uptime and Response Time
11

14. Mindflash API
12

15. Why
• Bulk Operations with UX flexibility
• Varied needs for same functionality
• Users more self-sufficient
13

16. API Functionality
• REST Services
• User and User Group
Management
• User Enrollment
• Reporting
14

17. API Call Flow
15
API
Customer 1
API
Customer 2
API
Customer 3
API
Customer 4
API
Customer 5
Services Layer
API Gateway

18. API Considerations
• Heterogeneous Needs
• User release cycles vary
• Backwards compatibility
• Objects evolve continuously
16

19. Mindflash External Service
Integration
17

20. Trends
• Growth of PaaS Services
• Evolution of Hub and Data
Analysis Solutions
• Public API and Open Source
18

21. Services we Integrate With
19

22. Integration
• Building and Maintaining Component
• API Migration and Upgrades
• Security and Bug Patches
20

23. Approach and Lessons Learned
21

24. Mindflash Development Philosophy
• Reuse, don’t reinvent
• Action and Iteration
• Upgrade continuously
22

25. System Design Best Practices
• Loose Coupling
• Chain-of-responsibility pattern
• Single Responsibility Principle
23

26. Programming Best Practices
• Defensive Programming
• Critical vs. non-critical
operations
• Real-time vs. Asynchronous
• Feature Flags
24

27. Real-time Vs. Asynchronous
25
MF
Trainers and
Prospects
Trainees
Hydra
Billing
RDS
Analytics
File
Conversion
Feature
Integration
Developers
MF
API
Gateway

28. Critical vs. Non-Critical
26
MF
Trainers and
Prospects
Trainees
Hydra
Billing
RDS
Analytics
File
Conversion
Feature
Integration
Developers
MF
API
Gateway

29. Feature Flags – our implementation
• Feature Flags persisted in DB
• Set per account and pricing tier
• Common Uses
– Manage rollout for risky changes
– Adjust feature offering based on pricing tier
– Enable limited testing of a feature
27

30. Feature Flipping in Node
/* Defining a Feature */
var flipper = require(‘flipper’);
flipper.add (‘newPlayer’);
/* Testing for a Feature */
Var flipper = require(‘flipper’);
If (flipper.newPlayer) {
}
Else {
}
/* Another Way */
Flipper.isEnabled(‘newPlayer’);
28

31. Enabling and Disabling
/* Enable */
flipper.enable(‘newPlayer’);
/*Disable */
Flipper.disable(‘newPlayer’);
/* Finding out all current features */
flipper.allFeatures();
29

32. Continuous Deployment
30
Build
Deploy to
QA
Check in
Run Tests
Deploy to
PROD
Rule-based
subset that
needs to be
rebuilt/deplo
yed

33. Process Best Practices
• Agile, Continuous
Deployment
• Early customer beta
• Automate, automate more
• Monitor, monitor more
31

34. Results
• Releases without fallout
• Shorter deployment cycles
• Much lower error rates
• Consistently high uptime
32

35. Lessons Learned
• Chain-of-responsibility pattern
effective
• Design for easy migration
• Comprehensive monitoring
• Failure Detection and Recovery
• Environment Convergence
33

36. Future Improvements
• Staging Environment
• Blue Green Deployment
• Nightly Performance
Testing
34

37. References
• http://mindflash.github.io/mf-api-
example/app/index.html#/sandbox
• Developer Blog –
http://www.mindflash.com/developers
35

38. Thank you!
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/shob
anaradhakrishnan
• @shobanarad
36

39. Questions?

40. Watch the video with slide synchronization on
InfoQ.com!
http://www.infoq.com/presentations/api-
integration-services