Cloud-Native Development

CCH02 Introduction to Actor-based Development with Project Orleans

11/16/2023

9:30am - 10:45am

Level: Introductory

Chris Klug

Developer

Active Solution

There are some domains that are really hard to model using your standard n-tier architecture. Domains like real time vehicle tracking, auctions and many IoT scenarios. Sure, they might look easy enough, and “work on my machine”, but when you start throwing some load at it, it can start to crumble quite quickly. And going down the good ol’ “Eventual Consistency Road” isn’t always an option, as consistency is actually important in some cases.

However, these aren’t new problems, and smart people have already created solutions for them. Solutions like the Actor pattern, which solves the problem by using in-memory “actors” to make life simpler. Unfortunately, the Actor pattern introduces another set of challenges. Things like instance proxying, state management, clustering, actor distribution and so on. Topics that most of us don’t feel like solving on our own. Luckily, Microsoft has already built all of this for us, in something they call Project Orleans.

Why not join Chris Klug, as he explains how Project Orleans can help you to solve scenarios like the ones described above. It might be worth noting though, that if you like slide heavy presentations with lots of theory and little practice, you should probably stay away. This session uses lots of demos to show you the practicalities of getting started building solutions using Project Orleans, and the features is offers. So please come well rested, and ready for a lot of coding.

You will lean:

  • What actor model development is
  • Where it fits and makes life simpler
  • How to get started with Project Orleans