[THRIFT-66] Java: Allow multiplexing multiple services over a single TCP connection

• Type: Sub-task
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Trivial
• Resolution: Abandoned
• Fix Version/s: 0.9.2
• Component/s: C# - Library, C++ - Library, Cocoa - Library, Erlang - Library, Java - Library, Perl - Library, Python - Library, Ruby - Library
• Patch Info: Patch Available
• Assignee: Roger Meier
• Reporter: Johan Stuyts
• Created: 01/Jul/08 07:11
• Updated: 21/Jan/16 22:22
• Resolved: 17/Jan/14 14:01

Description

The current TServer implementations expose a single service on a port. If an application has many services many ports have to be opened. This is cumbersome because:

• you have to document which service is available on which port, and remembering the port numbers is difficult
• to prevent the overhead of connection setup on each call, a client has to maintain to many connections: at least one to each port
• it requires opening many ports on a firewall if one is between the client and the server.

By multiplexing multiple services on a single port the problems above are resolved:

• instead of a port number a symbolic name can be assigned to a service
• a client can maintain a small pool of connections to a single port
• only one port has to be opened on the firewall

The attached Java implementation simply wraps a normal CALL message with a (new) SERVICE_SELECTION message. It is not necessary to modify or wrap the response. No changes are needed to the generated classes. Only a new type of server is introduced, and an invocation handler for a dynamic proxy around the Client classes of services is provided for the client side. The implementation does not handle communication errors (invalid data, timeouts, etc.) yet.

Issue Links

• is related to: THRIFT-251 Omniprotocol to have multi protocol over single services