2 Fast 2 Furious: migrating Medium's architecture...
summary
Medium migrates its frontend to a React client backed by a Scala GraphQL server (Sangria) that derives schema from protobufs as schemas, uses fetchers that map to existing REST or gRPC endpoints, repos that perform all data shaping, and a schema that only reads repo objects. A two‑phase plan gives immediate developer productivity wins (GraphQL layer, IDLs) and later performance gains by breaking the monolith into services and using gRPC for service comms. The migration proceeds incrementally and succeeds without halting feature work, proving the approach works.
AI-written summary · about
chapters (8)
- 0:00Migration rationale & goals
- 1:48New system design
- 2:47Phase 1: Developer experience
- 5:54Phase 2: Performance improvements
- 9:02GraphQL server: Fetchers
- 12:48GraphQL server: Repositories
- 14:47GraphQL server: Schema
- 17:22Conclusion and Q&A
related talks
37mGraphQL and Microservices or How we learned to be big and small at the same time
42mFrom REST to distributed GQL
55mGraphQL - APIs the New Way
26mRest, GraphQL & gRPC
25mTransforming the Monolith into a Federated Graph
24mMicrofrontends
50mSpring Time: From REST to GraphQL
50mDistributed GraphQL APIs: Breaking Down Monoliths & Unlocking Agility for Dev Teams