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AWS App Mesh vs ArangoDB Foxx: What are the differences?
Introduction:
AWS App Mesh and ArangoDB Foxx are two different tools used in the field of cloud computing and database management. Understanding their key differences can help in making informed decisions when choosing the right tool for a specific project or application.
1. Scalability and Deployment: AWS App Mesh primarily focuses on providing a comprehensive service mesh that enables microservices to communicate efficiently and securely. It offers scalability and deployment features that are tailored to microservices architectures, making it ideal for complex distributed systems. On the other hand, ArangoDB Foxx is a JavaScript framework for developing feature-rich microservices within the ArangoDB database. While it also supports microservices deployment, its primary focus is on database-centric operations and functionalities.
2. Service Discovery and Load Balancing: AWS App Mesh includes built-in service discovery and load balancing capabilities, allowing microservices to automatically discover and communicate with each other without the need for manual configuration. It optimizes traffic flow and ensures high availability of services within the mesh network. In contrast, ArangoDB Foxx relies on external tools or custom configurations for service discovery and load balancing, as its main purpose is to extend the functionality of the ArangoDB database rather than manage communication between microservices.
3. Monitoring and Tracing: AWS App Mesh provides extensive monitoring and tracing capabilities, allowing users to track and analyze performance metrics, service dependencies, and traffic patterns within the mesh network. It integrates seamlessly with AWS CloudWatch and AWS X-Ray for in-depth visibility into the microservices environment. ArangoDB Foxx, while offering some monitoring features, may require additional third-party tools or integrations for comprehensive monitoring and tracing of microservices interactions and performance.
4. Programming Language Support: AWS App Mesh works with various programming languages and frameworks commonly used in cloud-native applications, providing flexibility for developers in choosing their preferred technologies. It supports integration with multiple AWS services and tools, making it easy to incorporate into existing AWS environments. ArangoDB Foxx, being a JavaScript framework, is specifically designed for building microservices using Node.js within the ArangoDB database environment, limiting the choice of programming languages to JavaScript for backend development and customization.
5. Data Management and Persistence: AWS App Mesh does not inherently include data storage or persistence features, as its main focus is on managing communication and interactions between microservices. While it can be integrated with AWS databases or storage services for data management, it does not offer built-in database functionalities. ArangoDB Foxx, on the other hand, is tightly coupled with the ArangoDB database, providing seamless access to data storage, retrieval, and manipulation within the context of microservices development, making it easier to handle data-related tasks within the same environment.
6. Community and Support Ecosystem: AWS App Mesh benefits from the extensive support and community resources of Amazon Web Services (AWS), offering documentation, tutorials, and community forums for users to seek assistance and share knowledge. Users can leverage AWS certifications and training programs for skill development. ArangoDB Foxx, while having a dedicated user base and community support, may not have the same level of resources and ecosystem as a major cloud provider like AWS, potentially affecting the availability of comprehensive support and guidance for users.
In Summary, AWS App Mesh and ArangoDB Foxx differ in terms of scalability, service discovery, monitoring, programming language support, data management, and community support, catering to distinct use cases and requirements in the domains of service mesh and database-centric microservices development.
One of our applications is currently migrating to AWS, and we need to make a decision between using AWS API Gateway with AWS App Mesh, or Kong API Gateway with Kuma.
Some people advise us to benefit from AWS managed services, while others raise the vendor lock issue. So, I need your advice on that, and if there is any other important factor rather than vendor locking that I must take into consideration.
The benefit of using Kuma + Kong Gateway are:
- Feature-set: Kong + Kuma provide an end-to-end solution for both APIM and Service Mesh with a feature-set, and a performance, that is not matched by AWS services. In addition to this you can extend Kong Gateway with 70+ plugins out of the box and choose between 500+ plugins from the community to cover every use-case. In comparison, the feature-set of AWS API Gateway is quite limited and basic.
- Performance: Especially in the case of Kong Gateway, performance has always been a top priority for the project (more performance deliver more reliable applications). In some benchmarks the latency added by AWS API Gateway can be 200x more than what you would achieve with Kong Gateway natively which has been hand-crafted for maximum throughput.
- Cost: While cloud vendors like AWS make it very easy to get up and running with their services at a lower initial cost, that cost ramps up very quickly (exponentially) as the number of requests are increasing. With Kong GW you don't have this problem, since you can run tens of thousands of concurrent requests on a small EC2 instance (or Kubernetes Ingress, via the native K8s ingress controller for Kong Gateway).
- Portability: You can replicate your infrastructure on any other cloud, or on your development machines with ease. Want to run your gateway + mesh on your local Kubernetes cluster? You can do that. Want to run your infrastructure on another cloud provider? You can do that. Strategically you have full ownership of your infrastructure and its future. When it comes to Kuma, you can also run a Mesh on VM-based workloads in addition to Kubernetes (Kuma is universal).
- And much more.
Disclaimer: I am the CTO of Kong.
AWS App Mesh is useful when your micro services are deployed across Ec2 , EKS or ECS. Assume you are in process of migrating microservices from ec2 instances to ecs, its easy to switch using Virtual router configuration. As App Mesh is managed service and easy to bring up ,its worth giving it a try for your use case before choosing Kuma or any other tool.
Pros of ArangoDB Foxx
- Restricting Access to Sensitive Data1
- Infinitely Extensible1
- Easy to Learn1
- Reduced Network Overhead1
- Foxx-Builder1
- Command-line tools1
- User-defined functions1
- Direct access to data1
- Using JavaScript1
- Easy to build REST APIs1
