1. The Actor Model
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An alternative approach to concurrency
Lorenzo Nicora
Senior Consultant @ OpenCredo
@nicusX
https://opencredo.com/author/lorenzo/

2. ✓ (1973) Carl Hewitt: “A Universal Modular Actor Formalism for Artificial Intelligence”
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A bit of History…
1973
2009
✓ (2009) Akka toolkit, Scala/Java
✓ (1986) Ericsson: Erlang
Lorenzo Nicora Actor Model

3. According to Alan Kay,
author of Smalltalk
and inventor of the “Object-Orientation”:
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The original idea of Object
An “Object”
✓ Is the basic unit of object-oriented system
✓ Has its own state
✓ Communicate with others
by sending and receiving messages*
* in Java, C++, C# (derived from Simula, not Smalltalk)
Objects interact by invoking methods
1980
Lorenzo Nicora Actor Model

4. An “Actor”
is a computational entity that,
in response to a message it receives,
can concurrently:
a) Send a finite number of messages to other actors
b) Create a finite number of new actors
c) Designate the behaviour to be used for the next message
it receives. [implies a state]
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The Actor
Actor
Actor
Actor
Mailbox Mailbox
Mailbox
Lorenzo Nicora Actor Model

5. Actors interacts
only by messaging
Actors react to
messages
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Actors are Reactive
Lorenzo Nicora Actor Model

6. An Actor handles one message a time
Never concurrently
An Actor has a state
State cannot be modified from outside the actor
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Thread-safe
An Actor is inherently thread-safe
No Lock/Synchronisation on State
Lorenzo Nicora Actor Model

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Supervision
Actors are created by Actors
Parent -> Child
Lorenzo Nicora Actor Model

8. 8
Supervision
Failure Handling
• If a Child throws an Exception, the Supervisor get notified
• Supervision Strategy: e.g. relaunch, abandon…
Failure is always handled consistently
Parent = Supervisor
Lorenzo Nicora Actor Model

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Lightweight
Actor is lightweight
Creating an Actor has little overhead
beyond creating an Object
Lorenzo Nicora Actor Model

10. Non-blocking implementation
of Request/Response pattern
with multiple downstream collaborators
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Example: Non-blocking Request/Response
• One-Actor-per-Request pattern
• Enterprise Integration Patterns:
✴ Request/Reply
✴ Return Address
✴ Scatter-Gather, Aggregators
✴ Round-robin Message Router
Lorenzo Nicora Actor Model

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Example: Non-blocking Request/Response
Lorenzo Nicora Actor Model

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Example: Non-blocking Request/Response
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Example: Non-blocking Request/Response
Lorenzo Nicora Actor Model

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Example: Non-blocking Request/Response
Lorenzo Nicora Actor Model

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Example: Non-blocking Request/Response
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Example: Non-blocking Request/Response
Lorenzo Nicora Actor Model

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Example: Non-blocking Request/Response
Lorenzo Nicora Actor Model

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Example: Non-blocking Request/Response
Lorenzo Nicora Actor Model

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Example: Non-blocking Request/Response
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Example: Non-blocking Request/Response
Lorenzo Nicora Actor Model

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Example: Non-blocking Request/Response
Lorenzo Nicora Actor Model

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Conclusions
Actor model:
an alternative approach to concurrency
Actors, Threads
+ Business logic implementation +
inherently thread-safe
- A new programming paradigm -
to learn
Lorenzo Nicora Actor Model

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Lorenzo Nicora Actor Model