Aggregator Service Federation for Distributed APIs
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Solution Overview
Problem
In conventional network environments, APIs of various services are not connected and are hosted at different endpoints, requiring clients to submit queries to each service individually to obtain entity-related data, which is inefficient and increases processing load.
Innovation Solution
An aggregator service hosts APIs at a single endpoint, using a declarative entity model to determine appropriate services for queries and aggregate responses, reducing the need for clients to query each service separately and simplifying data aggregation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If clients query each service individually to obtain entity-related data, then data can be retrieved from multiple services, but processing load increases and efficiency decreases
Solution Approach 1:
An aggregator service is introduced as an intermediary component that receives client requests, determines which services contain the required entity-related data, queries those services, aggregates the responses, and returns the consolidated data to the client. This mediator approach consolidates multiple individual service queries into a single coordinated operation, improving efficiency while managing processing load through centralized control
2Adaptability or versatility
If APIs are hosted at different endpoints, then services can be distributed across the network, but clients must determine how to aggregate data from multiple sources
Solution Approach 1:
The aggregator service automatically performs the data aggregation task without requiring client intervention. It determines which services to query based on the entity type and properties requested, executes the queries, and consolidates the responses. This self-service approach maintains the flexibility of distributed service endpoints while eliminating the complexity of manual data aggregation from multiple sources
Data Source
AI summary
Network services may include data associated with one or more entities. An aggregator service may host respective application programming interfaces (APIs) of the services at a single endpoint of the network such that the entities, including associations and relationships between entities, may be federated. For example, the services may register the entities of which the data of each of the services is associated with through a declarative entity model to establish an API schema for each of the services, which may be published at the aggregator service. In response to receipt of a request for entity related data from a client, the aggregator service may employ the declarative entity model to determine which of the services are associated with the entity related data such that a query may be submitted to the services, and how to aggregate responses to the query received from the services for transmission to the client.