May 2022 Summaries

This article discusses how Ably complements Kafka for reaching end-users on the public internet. Kafka is an open-source event streaming solution that captures, stores, and processes event data using a publish/subscribe pattern. It is popular for building high-performance, event-driven pipelines due to its scalability, delivery guarantee, node failure management, high availability, and fault tolerance. Key concepts include events, topics, producers, and consumers. Kafka works best in private networks with a defined number of topics and predictable consumers. Ably is an edge messaging platform that offers a scalable, dependable, and secure way to distribute low-latency messages (events) to client devices via a fault-tolerant, autoscaling global edge network. It complements Kafka by extending its functionality across network boundaries for event streaming over the public internet. Ably channels can be created dynamically on demand and are at the core of its functionality. Ably's Four Pillars of Dependability match Kafka's capabilities: performance, integrity, reliability, and availability. It offers multiple security mechanisms, including SSL/TLS encryption, token-based and basic key-based authentication, privilege-based access, DoS protection, rate-limiting, and HIPAA compliance. The Ably Kafka Connector is a sink connector that maps Kafka topics to Ably channels for easy integration between the two pub/sub tools. It enables hassle-free data transfer from Kafka to an extensive subscriber list while ensuring data protection.

This blog post discusses the importance of event-driven architectures in organizations and how they are driven by customer expectations for interactive, immersive, and real-time online experiences. The author demonstrates a simple way to build a dependable real-time betting experience using Confluent Cloud and Ably edge messaging platform. They explain the real-time sports betting use case and the requirements for a dependable real-time betting solution. The post also provides an overview of the architecture, system characteristics, and benefits of combining Confluent Cloud and Ably for building real-time betting functionality. Additionally, it covers setting up Confluent Cloud and Ably, installing the Ably Kafka Connector, initializing the Android app, and seeing the solution in action. The author concludes by discussing going beyond the demo and final thoughts on combining Confluent Cloud and Ably for real-time digital experiences across various industries.

Ably surveyed over 500 engineering leaders about the challenges of building realtime edge messaging infrastructure in-house for applications like chat, delivery tracking, and collaboration tools. The study found that outsourcing to a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solution provider can save time, cost, and effort compared to building edge messaging infrastructure in-house. Ably's co-founders invested over 50,000 engineering hours before launching their dependable edge messaging infrastructure in 2016. The company aims to inform developers about the benefits of using a PaaS solution for realtime applications.

Edge computing and messaging have emerged as crucial components in modern software development due to the increasing demand for responsive, live user experiences. These technologies enable faster data transfer speeds by moving event processing closer to end-users, reducing latencies and enhancing overall performance. Gartner's report on event-driven architecture (EDA) highlights the importance of selecting the right event broker for specific use cases, with Ably being cited as a leading commercial platform for edge messaging. As companies continue to build live digital experiences, edge computing and messaging will play an increasingly vital role in delivering seamless user interactions across various applications and industries.

A recent Gartner report highlights Ably's role in extending event-driven architectures (EDA) to the edge, powering meaningful online experiences. The demand for EDA has increased by 90% between 2019 and mid-2021, with different types of event brokers addressing various use cases. One such use case is edge messaging, which provides reliable event distribution between devices and data centers. Ably's platform focuses on dependable realtime experiences for millions of connected devices worldwide, offering APIs to power live applications at scale.

The Ably VS Code extension is a new tool that enables developers to manage their Ably applications directly from the popular code editor, Visual Studio Code (VS Code). This extension allows users to create and inspect Ably apps without switching contexts to use a browser. Key features include the App Explorer for managing API keys, queues, and integration rules; copying API keys; refreshing the App Explorer; and creating new Ably apps. The development of this extension began during Ably Innovation Days, where it won the Ship It! category for being most actionable. Feedback and contributions to improve the extension are welcome via Ably Discord or GitHub.