Transactions in Microservices: Part 3 - SAGA Pattern with Orchestration and Temporal.io.
In the second article of this series, we explored the Choreography approach to distributed transactions using RabbitMQ. Now, let’s shift our focus to the Orchestration approach, where a central orchestrator manages the entire workflow. To make this practical, we’ll implement the same healthcare workflow but this time with Temporal.io, a robust orchestration platform for microservices. Each service will have its own logic, but the workflow coordination will be managed centrally. What is SAGA Orchestration? Orchestration centralizes the coordination of a distributed workflow. Instead of services emitting and consuming events autonomously, the orchestrator invokes service-specific logic and tracks progress. Key Benefits: Centralized Workflow Management: All logic resides in the orchestrator, making workflows easier to visualize and debug. Stateful Workflows: The orchestrator manages state, enabling retries, timeouts, and compensations. Error Handling: Built-in mechanisms for compensation and retries reduce boilerplate code. Challenges: Single Point of Failure: The orchestrator’s availability is critical. Complexity in Orchestrator Logic: Centralizing workflow management can lead to complex orchestrator code. Scalability: The orchestrator may become a bottleneck for high-throughput workflows. To tackle these challenges, we need a reliable ally—one that can rise to the occasion and handle it all without adding complexity to our lives. Temporal, I choose you! Who is Temporal? Temporal is a powerful platform designed to handle complex, long-running workflows with ease. It offers several advantages over traditional approaches to distributed systems and state management. Before diving into Temporal, it's worth briefly comparing it with other workflow orchestration solutions like AWS Step Functions and Simple Workflow Service (SWF). These tools also provide workflow management, but they have different trade-offs in terms of flexibility, scalability, and cloud dependency. Comparing Temporal, AWS Step Functions, and SWF Feature Temporal.io AWS Step Functions AWS SWF Cloud Agnostic ✅ Yes ❌ No (AWS only) ❌ No (AWS only) Developer Flexibility ✅ High (code-first workflows) ⚖️ Medium (declarative JSON-based)
In the second article of this series, we explored the Choreography approach to distributed transactions using RabbitMQ. Now, let’s shift our focus to the Orchestration approach, where a central orchestrator manages the entire workflow.
To make this practical, we’ll implement the same healthcare workflow but this time with Temporal.io, a robust orchestration platform for microservices. Each service will have its own logic, but the workflow coordination will be managed centrally.
What is SAGA Orchestration?
Orchestration centralizes the coordination of a distributed workflow. Instead of services emitting and consuming events autonomously, the orchestrator invokes service-specific logic and tracks progress.
Key Benefits:
- Centralized Workflow Management: All logic resides in the orchestrator, making workflows easier to visualize and debug.
- Stateful Workflows: The orchestrator manages state, enabling retries, timeouts, and compensations.
- Error Handling: Built-in mechanisms for compensation and retries reduce boilerplate code.
Challenges:
- Single Point of Failure: The orchestrator’s availability is critical.
- Complexity in Orchestrator Logic: Centralizing workflow management can lead to complex orchestrator code.
- Scalability: The orchestrator may become a bottleneck for high-throughput workflows.
To tackle these challenges, we need a reliable ally—one that can rise to the occasion and handle it all without adding complexity to our lives. Temporal, I choose you!
Who is Temporal?
Temporal is a powerful platform designed to handle complex, long-running workflows with ease. It offers several advantages over traditional approaches to distributed systems and state management.
Before diving into Temporal, it's worth briefly comparing it with other workflow orchestration solutions like AWS Step Functions and Simple Workflow Service (SWF). These tools also provide workflow management, but they have different trade-offs in terms of flexibility, scalability, and cloud dependency.
