Demystifying the Key Concepts of Spring Cloud Stream
1. Binders:
Binders work like a bridge between Spring Cloud Stream applications and messaging middleware like Apache Kafka or RabbitMQ. Binders handle the integration details, allowing developers to focus on the business logic rather spending time on configurations. Spring cloud stream supports multiple binder implementation which helps in providing flexibility for choosing the messaging system that suits better.
2. Channels:
Channels are the communication endpoints within the Spring Cloud Stream application. Channels are also of two types, one is input channel where messages are received, another one is the output channel where messages are sent. Channels are automatically configured or bound to the destination in a messaging system. This significantly helps in simplifying the communication configuration.
3. Messages:
Messages are the data or better to say, unit of data which is exchanged between Spring Cloud Stream Applications. Each message is a combination of actual data or payload and headers(optional) or the metadata. Messages are passed through channels. This enables communication between microservices.
Spring Cloud Stream – Demystified and Simplified
Spring framework was introduced for ease of Java application development. Later spring boot gained popularity for its easy-to-configure nature. To make the framework survive in the industry with demand for event-driver streaming architecture, Spring introduced a new framework named Spring Cloud Stream. People started calling it a lightweight Spring integration, but it is not and never was.
In this article, we will be exploring the Spring Cloud Stream demystifies the purpose of Spring Cloud Stream and will try to simplify the understanding of this framework.