From RESTful API to gRPC

It is contract-based, performant - with smaller response/request bodies, perfect for polyglot environments and supports different models – from client-server to bi-directional streaming out of the box. If we sprinkle some client-side load balancing, transient fault-handling and the ability of exposing a gRPC service also as a HTTP API, we might the perfect point-to-point communication mechanism.

In this workshop you will learn the how and the whys and understand where gRPC fits in the .NET APIs ecosystem. At the end of the workshop you will be able to use gRPC in real production environments.

Topics covered:

Introduction
- What gRPC is and how it fits in an API context
- gRPC vs RESTful APIs
- gRPC vs WCF

Protocol Buffers
- working with .proto files
- understanding the syntax
- defining custom types

Working with gRPC
- the 4 gRPC modes
- Implementing and consuming gRPC services
- Documenting and exposing gRPC endpoints

gRPC internals
- Accessing the gRPC context
- Accessing the gRPC HTTP context
- Trailers
- Headers
- Status codes in gRPC
- Exceptions in gRPC

Transient fault-handling
- Defining policies
- Configuring a retry policy
- Configuring a hedging policy

Interceptors
- Client interceptors
- Server interceptors
- Configuring interceptors
- Interceptors vs Middleware

Client-side load balancing
- implementing a client-side load balancing
- Configuring client side load balancing
- load balancing policies
- Round-Robin
- Pick first
- Implementing our own policy

Transcoding
- what is is gRPC transcoding
- exposing our services as HTTP
- Consuming methods from the browser
- How routing works with gRPC transconding
- gRPC JSON transcoding vs gRPC-Web
- grpc-gateway - alternative to transcoding

Testing
- Testing with Postman
- Unit testing service operations

Health-checks
- Implementing health checks

Securing gRPC services

Documenting gRPC endpoints

Prerequisites
Attendees will require a laptop with the latest version on .NET SDK and their editor/IDE of choice: Visuals Studio 2022