GraphQL has many advantages over RESTful APIs. A lot of companies start thinking about migration paths for adopting GraphQL, which not only come with technological but also with organizational challenges!

1. GraphQL in Production
Lokalleads GmbH
Hackescher Markt 4
10178 Berlin
Germany

2. About us
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Karol Wyszynski
Co-Founder & CTO
karol.wyszynski@lokalleads.de
LinkedIn:
www.linkedin.com/in/karol-wyszynski
Bogdan Nedelcu
Software-Developer
bogdan.nedelcu@lokalleads.de

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Lokalleads

4. Lokalleads
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B2B Service provider for craftsman with > 800 customers
- Real-time calculator for complex quotation
- Lead channel tracking(phone, email, showrooms)
- Online Marketing SaaS

5. Lokalleads
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Founded in 2013
- 35+ employees
- 8 applications
- 7 developers
- 4 programing languages

6. The Journey to GraphQL
6
1. Why: Motivation
2. How: Transition
3. How: Challenges
4. What: Result

7. 7
Motivation

8. Motivation – Legacy Infrastructure
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Frontend
Backend
Frontend
Backend
Frontend
Java Php Java Ruby Java ReactJS
Frontend Frontend Frontend
Backend Backend Backend

9. Motivation - Legacy Application Stack
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- Mostly MVC(Spring/Rails) with REST Endpoints
- Server-Side rendered HTML with Ajax calls
- One React JS Front End Client

10. Motivation - Requirements
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- Complex UI
- Public API
- Faster Development
- Reduce integration effort
- Reduce project onboarding
- Performance

11. Motivation - Solutions?
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Complex UI
- Experience with React.JS for over a year
- Future Implementation in most of the clients
- Developer team React knowledge

12. Motivation - Solutions?
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Public API
- Pure REST standard is hard to implement
- Unique URI´s, request methods has to have a meaning(PUT or POST?)
- Need a Gateway for security and performance
/product or /products
PUT or POST
which Content-Type ?

13. Motivation - Solutions?
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Integration effort
- Deficient tolling: Postman
- Documentation

14. Motivation - Solutions?
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Faster Development
- Parallelize front-end and backend development
- Communication and Transparency

15. Motivation - Solutions?
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Better Performace
- Network road-trips
- Reduce payload

16. Motivation – Solution
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Frontend
Java
Frontend
Php
Frontend Frontend Frontend Frontend
Java Ruby Node
GraphQL API
Node

17. Motivation – Technical Risk
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Non industrial Standard API
• Fastest growing community
• Strong reference implementation by Facebook

18. Motivation – Technical Risk
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Lack of experience
- Hired Professional Support for inital setup
- Team Training

19. Motivation – Technical Risk
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• REST as a supplement
All usecases covered?

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Transition

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22. Transition: Incremental Adoption
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Frontend
Backend
Frontend
Backend
Frontend
Backend
Frontend
Backend
Frontend
Backend
GraphQL
Frontend
Backend

23. Transition: Client App Based
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Frontend
Backend
Frontend
Backend
Frontend
Backend
Frontend
Backend
Frontend
Backend
Frontend
Backend
GraphQL

24. Transition: Client Requirements
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- Concurrent request
- Different data sources
- Reactive:On user action more requests

25. Transition: Development Process
Schema Design Backend && Frontend Production

26. Transition: GraphQL Schema
Prefer building a Graph-QL schema that describes
how clients use the data,
rather than mirroring the legacy database schema.

27. Transition: GraphQL Schema

28. Transition - Mock Data
REST responses were used as mock data.

29. Transition: Development Process
Schema Design ProductionDevelopment

30. Transition: Client App Based
View 1 View 1 View 1 View 1 View 1
GraphQL Server
Resolver2 Resolver 2 Resolver1

31. Transition - GraphiQL

32. Transition - Apollo Client

33. Transition - Voyager

34. Transition: Development Process
Schema Design ProductionBackend && Frontend

35. Transition: Production Tips

36. Transition: Production Tips

37. Challenges: Thinking in Graphs
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In the REST implementation data is modeled in terms of
network services.
/campaigns
/campaigns_and_metrics
/campaigns_and_statistics

38. Challenges: Thinking in Graphs
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With GraphQL, you model your business domain as a graph.
/campaigns
/campaigns_and_metrics
/campaigns_and_statistics

39. Challenges: Thinking in Graphs
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40. Challenges - Thinking in Graphs
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41. Challenges - Schema Agreement
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- Development starts with the
Schema
- Hard types force the team to agree
before hand

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Result

43. Results - Release Speed
2Xrelease speed***.
- Parallelized workflow
- Better Tooling
- Frontend team Autonomy

44. Results: Release Speed
2Xless onboarding time.
- Clean API
- Tooling
- Hard Typed

45. Results: Release Speed
2Xless time documenting.
- Code as Documentation
- GraphiQL as API inspector

46. Results: Release Speed
10Xdev happiness.
- Tooling
- YPWNT

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Many Thanks!