Laravel Micro-services Example

This is a simple laravel micro-services example project. It is to show how to create a separation and integration of micro-services in an application, with a containerised local environment using docker with a reverse proxy sitting on top. Could be a starting point for a full-fledged microservices application!

How to get set up

This project consists of three micro-services user, product & order and api-gateway(an API gateway). The micro-services are containerised using Docker and are accessible within a Traefik proxy interface.

Using traefik image for the proxy container and php:8.0.0-apache image, which is extended for the micro-services containers & the API gateway.

The api is using the Guzzle API Client in order to maintain connection with the micro-services. Lumen was used as it is the perfect solution for building Laravel based micro-services and blazing fast APIs.

Configuration

Install Docker & Docker Machine

If you don't have Docker installed, you can download it here. And Docker Machine. Create a docker-machine *

    docker-machine create laravel-microservices-example
    eval $(docker-machine env laravel-microservices-example)

Mount volumes as NFS

To prevent permission problems, leverage Docker-Machine-NFS to mount volumes as NFS. First, install docker-machine-nfs and then run the following command:

docker-machine-nfs laravel-microservices-example --nfs-config="-alldirs -maproot=0" --mount-opts="noacl,async,nolock,vers=3,udp,noatime,actimeo=1"

Create the external network

    docker network create web

Update your hosts file

    # Get the ip of the VMachine
    docker-machine ip laravel-microservices-example
    
    # Update /etc/hosts file
    192.168.99.103 laravel-microservice-example.local user.laravel-microservice-example.local inventory.laravel-microservice-example.local order.laravel-microservice-example.local api.laravel-microservice-example.local

Setup all micro-services

In order to get up and running, you need to setup each individual service.

• frontend
• api gateway
• order
• product
• user

Once you set all services, you are ready to use them.

Deployment instructions

Build & Run

    docker-compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml up -d --build

Access

The endpoints to access each micro-service are:

    #frontend
    http://laravel-microservice-example.local
    
    #api gateway
    http://api-gateway.laravel-microservice-example.local
    
    #order
    http://order.laravel-microservice-example.local
    
    #product
    http://product.laravel-microservice-example.local

    #user
    http://user.laravel-microservice-example.local

Reverse proxies

You can access Traefik interface from:

    http://laravel-microservice-example.local:8080

Teardown and "Scale"

Teardown

    docker-compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml down --volumes --remove-orphans

Isolate Micro-Services

Setting the traefik.enable=false for the micro-services will make them accessible only from the API gateway (proxy backend network).

Improvements & Considerations

• Database configuration - Use databases to store data. You can add new docker mysql containers in docker/docker-compose.yml and apply proxy configuration in order to be able to access them.
• Each service must be accessible from a unique entry point, in our case the APIs. This should be the only way for communication between services.
• Communication between the services should not be direct. One service should not be aware of the other! This type of communication can be achieved by using messaging or events.
• Tests are essential part of software development. Functionality of each service should be unit tested. Functionality of the whole flow should be functionally tested.

Contribution guidelines

• Since this is a PHP project, PHPUnit will be used for unit tests.
• Contributions are welcomed, so a code review is done when a pull request is created and merged appropriately if changes are fine.

Contact

• Michael ([email protected])