Just because Brubeck is fast doesn't mean you should do everything in one process.

Brubeck Services

Brubeck uses ZMQ (ZeroMQ) to receive messages when using Mongrel2 as a web front end. Brubeck Services allow you to use ZMQ to also make requests to a Brubeck Service instance. A Brubeck Service is a special instance that listens for requests from other Brubeck Instances instead of Mongrel2 (or a wsgi server if that is your preffered Brubeck web application interface).

Distributing all or part of a request to a Brubeck Service allows CPU intensive processes to be run on other machines/processes. This then frees up the inital Brubeck instance to work on other web requests, handling I/O intensive processes only.

Service Patterns

Services are called from handler and can have the following patterns.

1. Asynchronous Service Call

   A service is called and control is immediately returned to the calling service which is then responsible for responding to the initial the web request.

   A response is still sent back to the Brubeck Application Instance and handled as needed, however the web client is no longer involved.

2. Synchronous Service Call

   A service is called and the result is returned when the service has complete its task. This behaves the same as a blocking call in the handler code, but allows other requests to be handled and is non-blocking for the server instance.

   A response is sent back to the Brubeck Application Instance and handled as needed. The caller gets the initial request and the response from the handled response returned to them in a tuple.

   Using the returned ReplyRequest and response text(if needed) they are responsible for then continuing from the point of the service call and responding to the initial web request.

Brubeck Service

A brubeck service is a Brubeck instance that has been started with a ServiceConnection connection type and has been configured to handle routes with at least one BrubeckMessageHandler.

Here is the complete Brubeck Service from demo_service.py

#!/usr/bin/env python
import logging
import time
from brubeck.request_handling import Brubeck
from brubeckservice.base import (
    ServiceConnection,
    ServiceMessageHandler,
    coro_sleep,
)
from brubeck.templating import (
    Jinja2Rendering,
    load_jinja2_env,
)


class SlowEchoServiceHandler(ServiceMessageHandler):
    """A slow service"""

    def request(self):
        """do something and take too long"""
        logging.debug("Starting request %s:%s" % (self.message.conn_id, int(time.time())))
        coro_sleep(5)
        self.set_status(200, "Took a while, but I am back.")
        self.add_to_payload("RETURN_DATA", self.message.get_argument("RETURN_DATA", "NO DATA"))
        self.headers = {"METHOD": "response"}
        logging.debug("Done, sending back %s:%s" % (self.message.conn_id, int(time.time())))
        return self.render()


##
## runtime configuration
##
config = {
    'msg_conn': ServiceConnection('ipc://run/slow', 'ipc://run/slow_response', 'my_shared_secret'),
    'handler_tuples': [ ## Set up our routes
        # Handle our service responses
        (r'^/service/slow', SlowEchoServiceHandler),
    ],
    'cookie_secret': '51cRa%76fa^O9h$4cwl$!@_F%g9%l_)-6OO1!',
    'template_loader': load_jinja2_env('./templates'),
    'log_level': logging.DEBUG,
}


##
## get us started!
##
app = Brubeck(**config)
## start our server to handle requests
if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.run()

Requested received are routed based on the messages Path and METHOD to corresponding handlers.

Let's look at some of the code from the handler SlowEchoServiceHandler above.

1. Adding attributes that will be part of the returned JSON result is as easy as calling add_to_payload(key, value).

   self.add_to_payload("RETURN_DATA", self.message.body["RETURN_DATA"])

2. We then set the headers with the only required attribute METHOD set to response. Our status is HTTP like and we set to 200 to indicate success.

   self.headers = {"METHOD": "response"} self.set_status(200, "Took a while, but I am back.")

3. Calling self.render() will create a JSON body from the payload and send a ServiceResponse to the client that made the initial request. The path of the reply will be the same as the request, and along with the METHOD will be used to map to the proper handler on the initiating client side.

Brubeck Service Client

A brubeck service client is a typically a MessageHandler instance that must be a brubeckservices.base.ServiceClientMixin. Technically it doesn't need to derive from MessageHandler and can be any class, but it should have the application attribute. The application attribute allows resources to be stored at an application level and cached between requests. Without this attribute there will be no caching and a connection will be created for each request.

Here is the complete Brubeck Service Client from demo_service_client.py

#!/usr/bin/env python
import logging
import time
from brubeck.connections import Mongrel2Connection
from brubeck.request_handling import (
    JSONMessageHandler,
    WebMessageHandler, 
    Brubeck,
    render,
)
from brubeckservice.base import (
    ServiceClientMixin,
    ServiceMessageHandler,
    coro_sleep,
)
from brubeck.templating import (
    Jinja2Rendering,
    load_jinja2_env,
)
# some static data for testing
service_addr = "ipc://run/slow"
service_resp_addr = "ipc://run/slow_response"
service_passphrase = "my_shared_secret"
service_path = '/service/slow'
request_headers = {}
request_method = 'request'
sync_request_arguments  = {"RETURN_DATA": 'I made a round trip, it took a while but I bring results.'}
async_request_arguments = {"RETURN_DATA": 'I made a round trip, it took so long I will respond to no one.'}

class DemoHandler(
        Jinja2Rendering,
        WebMessageHandler
    ):

    def get(self):
        # just return a page with some links
        context = {
            'name': "Async is faster, but ... nothing to report on my trip.",
        }

        return self.render_template('index.html', **context)


class CallServiceAsyncHandler(
        Jinja2Rendering,
        ServiceClientMixin,
        WebMessageHandler
    ):

    def get(self):
        # register our resource
        self.register_service(service_addr, service_resp_addr, service_passphrase)
        # create a servicerequest
        service_request = self.create_service_request(
            service_path,
            request_method,
            async_request_arguments
        )

        ## Async
        self.send_service_request_nowait(service_addr, service_request)

        # now return to client whatever you want
        self.set_status(200)
        context = {
            'name': "Async is faster, but ... nothing to report on my trip.",
        }
        return self.render_template('success.html', **context)


class CallServiceSyncHandler(
        Jinja2Rendering,
        ServiceClientMixin,
        WebMessageHandler
    ):

    def get(self):
        # register our service, if exist nothing happens
        self.register_service(service_addr, service_resp_addr, service_passphrase)
        # create a servicerequest
        service_request = self.create_service_request(
            service_path,
            request_method,
            sync_request_arguments
        )

        ## Sync
        (response, handler_response) = self.send_service_request(service_addr, service_request)

        # now return to client what you got back
        self.set_status(200)
        context = {
            'name': response.body["RETURN_DATA"],
        }
        return self.render_template('success.html', **context)


class ServiceResponseHandler(ServiceMessageHandler):
    """handles the response from our service
    """

    def response(self):
        """On successfull response from Brubeck Service"""
        if self.status_code == 200:
            logging.debug("Successfull %s:%s)!" % (self.status_code,self.status_msg))
        else:
            logging.debug("Failed (%s:%s)!" % (self.status_code,self.status_msg))
        # This is not a response to the client, but to the original handler
        # or no one at all if the service is called async
        return self.render()


##
## runtime configuration
##
config = {
    'msg_conn': Mongrel2Connection('tcp://127.0.0.1:9999',
                                     'tcp://127.0.0.1:9998'),
    'handler_tuples': [ ## Set up our routes
        # Handle our service responses
        (r'^/service/slow', ServiceResponseHandler),
        # Handle our request
        (r'^/service/sync', CallServiceSyncHandler),
        (r'^/service/async', CallServiceAsyncHandler),
        (r'^/$', DemoHandler),
    ],
    'cookie_secret': '51cRa%76fa^O9h$4cwl$!@_F%g9%l_)-6OO1!',
    'template_loader': load_jinja2_env('./templates'),
    'log_level': logging.DEBUG,
}

##
## get us started!
##
app = Brubeck(**config)
    
## start our server to handle requests
if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.run()

##
## get us started!
##
app = Brubeck(**config)
## start our server to handle requests
if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.run()

Let's look at some of the more important things we needed to do above:

1. Register a handler to handle responses from a Brubeck Service.

   config = {
       ...
       'handler_tuples': [ ## Set up our routes
           ...
           (r'^/service/slow', ServiceResponseHandler),
           ...
       ],
       ...
   }
   

   This handler can be as simple as the following extending ServiceMessageHandler:

   class ServiceResponseHandler(ServiceMessageHandler):
       def response(self):
           """On successfull upload by uploader BrubeckInstance"""
           if self.status_code == 200:
               logging.debug("Successfull %s:%s)!" % (self.status_code,self.status_msg))
           else:
               logging.debug("Failed (%s:%s)!" % (self.status_code,self.status_msg))
           return self.render()
   

   response in the default method that is caled on a ReponseHandler if no other is specified. Only the following methods are supported:

   'get', 'post', 'put', 'delete', 'options', 'connect', 'response', 'request'
   

   Notice how it is using the status_code as a return value from the service. The following status_codes are supported (from request_handling.WebMessage):

   _DEFAULT_STATUS = 500  # default to server error
   _SUCCESS_CODE = 200
   _UPDATED_CODE = 200
   _CREATED_CODE = 201
   _MULTI_CODE = 207
   _FAILED_CODE = 400
   _AUTH_FAILURE = 401
   _FORBIDDEN = 403
   _NOT_FOUND = 404
   _SERVER_ERROR = 500
   

2. Extend ServiceClientMixin to be able to make calls to a service from any handlers.

   class CallServiceSyncHandler(
           Jinja2Rendering,
           ServiceClientMixin,
           WebMessageHandler
       ):
   
       def get(self):
           # register our service, if exist nothing happens
           self.register_service(service_addr, service_resp_addr, service_passphrase)
           # create a servicerequest
           service_request = self.create_service_request(
               service_path, 
               request_headers, 
               sync_request_body
           )
       
       
           ## Sync
           (response, handler_response) = self.send_service_request(service_addr, service_request)
   
           logging.debug("Took a while, but lot's to say now")
           logging.debug("response: %s" % response)
           logging.debug("handler_response: %s" % handler_response)
   
           # now return to client what you got back
           self.set_status(200)
           context = {
               'name': response.body["RETURN_DATA"],
           }
           return self.render_template('success.html', **context)
   

   Let's look at a typical synchronous request.

   Create a ServiceRequest.

   service_request = self.create_service_request(
       service_path, 
       request_headers, 
       sync_request_body
   )
   

   Send a syncronouse ServiceRequest to a service

   (response, handler_response) = self.send_service_request(service_addr, service_request)
   

   service_addr is a ZMQ protocol address such as tcp://127.0.0.1:9999/my_service

   To send an asyncronous request the above line would change to:

   self.send_service_request_nowait(service_addr, service_request)
   

Running the Demos

Brubeck comes with the above example complete as a demo.

• Demo Service
• Demo Service Client

To run the demos you need three windows.

1. Run mongrel2 in one shell instance.

   cd demos
   m2sh load -config mongrel2.conf -db the.db
   m2sh start -db the.db -host localhost
   

2. Run the Brubeck Service in another shell instance.

   cd demos
   ./demo_service.py
   

3. Run the Brubeck Service in another shell instance.

   cd demos
   ./demo_service_client.py
   

4. Open a browser and navigate to http://localhost:6767/