How GraphQL will change your product development on all levels: business, product, process, engineering. What impact technology has on different aspects of a company.

1. How GraphQL influences your product
development on all levels
Business Process
Product Engineering

2. Aleksandr Obukhov
Lead Backend Engineer at AMBOSS GmbH

3. AMBOSS 1.5 year ago
Web app
Mobile API
Admin

4. Engineering vs business impact

5. Engineering vs business impact
It’s cool
suitability?
costs?
scalability?
risks

6. Why It’s cool?

7. GraphQL as a communication language

8. GraphQL Schema declaration
"Represents user profile"
type User {
id: ID!
firstName: String!
lastName: String!
friends: [User!]
invitedBy: User
}
"Mutations"
type Mutation {
inviteUser(inviteeEmail: String!): Boolean
...
1. User has first and last name
2. User can have multiple friends, or not
3. User can be invited by other user and
this connection is kept
4. You can invite another user by email

9. Schema declaration can be
- Compiled in interactive documentation (GraphiQL)
- Visualized (GraphQL Voyager, GraphQL editor)
How can we use it?

10. Visualized (GraphQL Voyager)

11. GraphQL Documentation Explorer
https://www.npmjs.com/package/graphql-docs

12. Value of GraphQL as a communication language
+ Better understanding of business
logic use cases (onboarding,
working with old features)
ProcessProduct
+ Communication language
between backend development
team and client (web, app) team
+ Async development of features

13. GraphQL - one API to rule them all

14. Before GraphQL
I know what “user” is,
Here you go!
Wow! How many fields
I need only two of them
Hey server!
Give me the user id 1!

15. Before GraphQL
Webapp API
API for iOS app
API for Android app
API for new Android app
V2

16. With GraphQL
Hey server!
Give me the name, age
and friends of user id 1!
I know what “user” can
be, here’s what you
need!

17. With GraphQL
V2

18. Value of on universal and live API
+ Reuse one API on different
platforms as much as it is
possible - reduce costs
+ Maintain only one version of API, easier to
guarantee quality / write tests
Business Process
Engineering
+ Develop API as you go, it is
easy to change
+ GraphQL – agile of API

19. GraphQL as an abstraction layer

20. GraphQL as an abstraction layer

21. Value of API as an abstraction layer
+ Save on rewriting old but stable
services
+ Ability to build scalable heterogeneous solutions
+ As an abstraction layer helps to decouple
implementation from clients
Business Process
Engineering
+ Encourages microservice
architecture, fosters small
independent teams

22. GraphQL and Open source community

23. GraphQL and Open source community
In addition to the GraphQL reference implementations in JavaScript,
server libraries include:
● C# / .NET
● Clojure
● Elixir
● Erlang
● Go
● Groovy
● Java
● JavaScript
● PHP
● Python
● Scala
● Ruby

24. Open source community benefits
+ Working on recent technologies in
community is good for engineer’s
motivation
+ Active open source community
means that majority of tasks in
the area are already solved
Business Engineering

25. Questions?
dclg_en
Aleksandr Obukhov
AMBOSS GmbH, Berlin