This document summarizes Asanka Abeysinghe's career and introduces the concept of cell-based architecture. It discusses the motivation for a new decentralized architecture pattern and describes cell-based architecture, where cells are self-contained units of enterprise architecture that contain components and communicate with each other. The key aspects are that it is decentralized, microservices-based, cloud-native, technology neutral, and human-centric.

1. Asanka Abeysinghe
Cell-based Architectur
e
Decentralized Architecture Pattern for Cloud-native
Applications
Chief Technology Evangelist (former Deputy CTO)
WSO2 Inc.

2. 2019
1997 2003
Architect
2012
VP Solutions
Architecture
2001 2008
Director
Solutions
Architecture
Deputy CTO
Open Source
Distributed Computing
Programmer
COBOL
OLE, OLE
2
COM, COM
+
DCO
M
CORBA
Java Developer
J2E
E
MMS
286-DX4
Eventin
g
FI
X
HL7
CONNECT-health
Global architecture tea
m
500+ customer
s
Champions program
Chief
Architect
2005
QS
P
A
R
Trusted advocate
Game hacker
C++ programmer
Age-16
Hedge fund tools
Ref. Architectur
e
Ref. Methodolog
y
Evangelize
2018
Middleware Developer/Architect
Entrepreneur
Chief
Technology
Evangelist
2020
Connecting humans & technolog
y
Architecting the transformation

3. Objectives
#1 why: a new patter
n
#2 how: created the patter
n
#3 what: is Cell-based architecture
https://github.com/wso2/reference-architecture/blob/master/reference-architecture-cell-based.md

4. picture credit: https://www.flickr.com/

5. Motivation

6. Centralized & Layered
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7. picture credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/69929929@N06/
Powerpoint Architects

8. picture credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnerlandsen/
Reality of the Enterprise

9. Brownfield > Greenfield
picture credit: https://www.apstra.com/home/landscape-of-meadow-field-with-the-changing-environment-2/
Legacy, monolithic Microservices, sprawl

10. Reference Implementations
picture credit: https://www.marinersmuseum.org/

11. picture credit: http://unlocked.footlocker.com/
Underutilization of the Technology

12. Gap: architecture | development | deployment
picture credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/28994379@N02/

13. picture credit: https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2017/07/georgia-contractor-sells-farmers-solar-tough-market/
Dependency management

14. picture credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tiocfaidh_ar_la_1916/
Architecture Patterns

15. Timeline

16. Background: Layered Architecture

17. picture credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/23119666@N03/
A platform with an agile team
100 APIs, 60 message flows, 80 services, n DB
s
Multi-tenanted, 3 active tenants
First release after 3 years

18. picture credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/imcountingufoz/
Rise of Microservices

19. Pragmatic Microservices
Netflix: APIs
Uber: Edge Gateway
eBay: API Facade
Gartner: Mini Services

20. Business vs technical services
picture credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/arpadlukacs/

21. Service: Technical definition
A code exposes through an
interface that describes a
collection of operations that are
network accessible using a
standardized messaging
protocol.

22. Service: Business definition
Software components that
can be spontaneously
discovered, combined, and
recombined to provide a
solution to a business
problem.

23. Microservice: Technical definition
A microservice must have a
single purpose and be loosely
coupled in design and deployed
independently of other
microservices.
"Micro" is a concept of scope
rather than size.

24. Microservice: Business definition
Microservices is an approach to
application development in which
a large application is built as a
suite of modular components or
services.
These services are built around
business capabilities.

25. Background: Layered Architecture with MSA

26. Background: Segmented Architecture
BS-1 BS-2 BS-n
G-1 G-2
US-1 US-n

27. Platform of Platforms
Platform (shared capabilities)
Project
Project
2
Project
3
Project
n
Platform (shared capabilities)
Project
Project
2
Project
3
Project
n
Platform (shared capabilities)
Project
Project
2
Project
3
Project
n
Platform (shared capabilities)
Project
Project
2
Project
3
Project
n
CI/CD
User
Store

28. picture credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ableman/

29. Building the
Concept

30. The cell is the basic structural,
functional, and
biological unit of all known
living organisms

31. Cell-based Architecture

32. Component: Atomic Units
A component represents a
process or business logic
running in a container,
serverless environment, or an
existing runtime. A component is
designed based on a specific
scope, which can be
independently run and reused at
the runtime.

33. Cell: Units of Enterprise Architecture
A cell is a collection of
components, grouped from
design and implementation into
deployment. A cell is
independently deployable,
manageable, and observable.

34. Group of (Micro)services

35. Cell:Componen
t
1:
M
1:1

36. Connected Cells
picture credit: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/

37. Control Plane:
- Signaling of the networ
k
- Makes decisions about the traffic flow
Data Plane:
- Forwards traffic between hop
s
- Takes data packets
picture credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/teflon/
Management Plane:
- Configure
- Observeabiltty, Monitor

38. Inter and Intra Cell communication
Local-mesh
Global-mesh
DP- data plan
e
CP- control plan
e
MP- management plane

39. Connected Cells
Cell gateway (ingress
)
Sidecar (egress)
Adaptor (egress)
Ambassador (egress)

40. API-first Architecture
picture credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/hugh_nelson/

41. API-first Architecture Pull API
s
- RESTful HTTP, gRPC
Push API
s
- Events JMS, AMQP, SMTP
- Streams Kafka, MQTT

42. Automated Governance (Re)-enables Flow
Policy Stor
e
(Registry)
Observabilit
y
(Monitoring/
Analytics)
Policy
Enforcemen
t
(GW
)
Automated governance is made
of three things
:
A source of truth
:
Policy store/registr
y
Enforcement of the polic
y
Gateway or plugin attempting to keep the
desired stat
e
Observability
How close to the desired state are we?

43. Security of Cells

44. Developer Experience (DX)
of a Cell

45. Creating Cells
Brand new Cell
Existing (micro)service
s
Update an existing Cel
l
Create a new version

47. Lifecycle of a Cell

49. Structured Agility
Versioned Components
Versioned Cell
s
Dependency manage
d
Autowired
Reusable
Enhanced MSA & CNA

50. Cell-based Enterprise
Architecture

52. Cell Types
Cell Type Components
Logic Microservices, Functions, MicroGateways, lightweight storages
Integration MicroESB or other integration microservices, lightweight storage and/or cache
Legacy Existing systems, legacy services
External SaaS and partner systems
Data RDBMS, NoSQL, File, Message Broker*
Identity IDP, user stores
Channel Web Apps, IoT, mobile apps

53. Reference Implementation L0

55. Reference Implementation L1

57. Human-centric Architecture
picture credit: https://www.vertoanalytics.com/human-vs-data-centric-marketing/

58. Cells and Cellular Organizations
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/06/29/the-cellular-enterprise/

59. Measure the success
picture credit: https://www.marketingdonut.co.uk/direct-marketing/running-a-direct-mail-campaign/getting-the-measure-of-your-marketing

60. https://www.tasktop.com/blog/5-best-metrics-youve-never-met/
https://dzone.com/articles/reducing-mttr
Mean Time to Repair

61. Self-containe
d
Units of enterprise architectur
e
Independently elasti
c
Local data & control plane
Summary: Cell

62. Decentralized, MSA, Cloud-nativ
e
Technology neutral
Human-centri
c
APIs as products
Summary: Cell-based Architecture

63. Contribution: walk the talk
picture credit: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2018/06/microsoft-buying-github

64. picture credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/infomatique/
Invitation to consume and contribute
https://github.com/wso2/reference-architecture
https://github.com/wso2/reference-methodology
https://ballerina.io
http://wso2.com
http://cellery.io

65. Abc
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