Author: Anjali Sharma

Cloudstate with Java (Part 2): Getting Started with Java

Reading Time: 2 minutes In our last blog, we talked about the various prerequisites needed to implement cloudstate with Java. In this blog we will look into few more points to keep in mind while implementing cloudstate using Java. So lets go ahead! The Protobuf files In our previous blog we read about the Protoc compiler which is required to compile gRPC protobuf descriptors. We also learned that this Continue Reading

Cloudstate with Java (Part 1): Getting Started with Java

Reading Time: 2 minutes In today’s world, serverless computing has evolved a lot. And with this concept of serverless computing, Lightbend has come up with an amazing framework known as Cloudstate.  Cloudstate is a specification, protocol, and reference implementation for providing distributed state management patterns suitable for Serverless computing. – cloudstate.io To know more about Cloudstate please go through the blog series: Cloudstate – What is it ? Cloudstate Continue Reading

Rebalancing in Akka Cluster Sharding

Reading Time: 4 minutes In this blog we will be discussing about one of the important feature of Akka Cluster Sharding which is Rebalancing. Before moving forward make sure you have some basic knowledge on Akka Cluster Sharding, if not then please read Introduction to Akka Cluster Sharding and Implementing Akka Cluster Sharding. Before directly diving into this amazing feature which akka sharding provides, lets first understand the need Continue Reading

Understanding Testing of Akka Actors

Reading Time: 2 minutes We may sometimes say the testing situation in Akka is a little confusing. In this blog you’ll learn about how the actors are tested in Akka. In Akka generally we have two kinds of tests, synchronous and asynchronous which some people term as ‘unit‘ and ‘integration‘ tests. ‘Unit tests‘ are synchronous, you directly test the receive method without requiring an actor system, etc. ‘Integration tests‘ Continue Reading

Implementing Akka Cluster Sharding

Reading Time: 3 minutes Now that we have a basic understanding of Akka Cluster Sharding in my previous blog. Let’s have a look at how we are going to implement this and what are the things that we need to keep in our mind while doing that.  To shard a specific type of actor we use the cluster sharding akka extension, and we call it as start, we can Continue Reading

Introduction to Akka Cluster Sharding

Reading Time: 3 minutes When we think of sharding or partitioning it’s typically related to databases. Databases uses sharding to improve resilience and elasticity. The Akka Toolkit provides Cluster Sharding as a way to introduce sharding in your application. Instead of distributing database records across a cluster, we’re distributing actors across nodes in the cluster, and it enables running at most one instance of a given actor at any Continue Reading

Comparison between different streaming engines

Reading Time: 5 minutes Distributed stream processing engines have been on the rise in the last few years, first Hadoop became popular as a batch processing engine, then focus shifted towards stream processing engines. Stream processing engines can make the job of processing data that comes in via a stream easier than ever before and by using clustering can enable processing data in larger sets in a timely manner. Continue Reading

kafka with spark

Dynamic Partition Pruning in Spark 3.0

Reading Time: 6 minutes Dynamic Partition Pruning in Spark 3.0 With the release of Spark 3.0, big improvements were implemented to enable Spark to execute faster and there came many new features along with it. Among them, dynamic partition pruning is one. Before diving into the features which are new in Dynamic Partition Pruning let us understand what is Partition Pruning. Partition Pruning in Spark In standard database pruning Continue Reading

Backpressure in Akka Streams

Reading Time: 4 minutes “Reactive Streams”, whenever we come across these words, there are two things that come to our mind. The first is asynchronous stream processing and the second is non-blocking backpressure. In this blog, we are going to learn about the latter part. Understanding back pressure According to the English dictionary, back pressure means “Resistance or force opposing the desired flow of fluid through pipes”. To define Continue Reading

Beginners Guide for Mocking in Scala

Reading Time: 3 minutes We all must know how the unit test cases are one of the most important part of an application. If not? Then I must tell you that unit testing is one of the earliest testings which is performed on the unit of code and the earlier the defects are detected, the easier it is to fix. It reduces the difficulties of discovering errors contained in Continue Reading

Akka Dispatcher- All that you need to know

Reading Time: 4 minutes Pre-requisite knowledge: Basics of Akka and Actor System. Fun fact: Did you know that ActorSystem has a heart? Well yes, the ActorSystem is considered to have a heart and it is the “Dispatchers”. We will see how, in this blog. In the real world, dispatchers are the communication coordinators responsible for receiving and passing messages. For example, in emergency services like 911, the dispatchers are Continue Reading