Automated Event-Driven Architectures and Microservices with Apache Kafka and SmartBear

Is it possible to have automated adoption of your event-driven architectures and microservices? The answer is yes! Alianna Inzana, product leader for API testing and virtualization at SmartBear, uses this evolutionary model to make event services reusable, functional, and strategic for both in-house needs and clients. SmartBear relies on Apache Kafka® to drive its automated microservices solutions forward through scaled architecture and adaptive workflows. 

Although the path to adoption may be different across use case and client requirements, it is all about maturity and API lifecycle management. As your services mature and grow, so should your event streaming architecture. The data your organization collects is no longer in a silo—rather, it has to be accessible across several events. The best architecture can handle these fluctuations. Alianna explains that although the result of these requirements is an architectural pattern, it doesn’t start that way. Instead, these automation processes begin as coding patterns on isolated platforms. 

You cannot rush code development at the coding stage because you never truly know how it will work for the end system. Testing must be done at each step of the implementation to ensure that event-driven architectures work for each step and variation of the service. The code will be altered as needed throughout the trial phase. Next, the product and development teams compare what architecture you currently have to where you’d like it to be. It is all about the product and how you’d like to scale it. The tricky part comes in the trial and error of bringing on each product and service one by one. However, once your offerings and architecture are synced, you’re saving time and effort not building something new for every microservice. 

As a result of event-driven architectures, you can minimize duplicate efforts and adapt your business offerings to them as the need arises. This is a strategic step for any organization looking to have a cohesive product offering. Architecture automation allows for flexible features that scale with your event services. Once these are in place, a company can use and grow them as needed. With innovative and adaptable event-driven architectures, organizations can grow with clients and scale the backend system as required. 

EPISODE LINKS

• Exploring Event-Driven Architectures: Why Quality Matters
• Apache Kafka + Event-Driven Architecture Support in ReadyAPI
• Watch the video version of this podcast
• Join the Confluent Community
• Learn more with Kafka tutorials, resources, and guides at Confluent Developer
• Live demo: Kafka streaming in 10 minutes on Confluent Cloud
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