Fast, Scalable Networking in Go with Mangos

Sat, 10 Jan 2015 17:21:19 -0600

In the past, I’ve looked at nanomsg and why it’s a formidable alternative to the well-regarded ZeroMQ. Like ZeroMQ, nanomsg is a native library which markets itself as a way to build fast and scalable networking layers. I won’t go into detail on how nanomsg accomplishes this since my analysis of it already covers that fairly extensively, but instead I want to talk about a Go implementation of the protocol called Mangos. ((Full disclosure: I am a contributor on the Mangos project, but only because I was a user first!)) If you’re not familiar with nanomsg or Scalability Protocols, I recommend reading my overview of those first.

A Look at Nanomsg and Scalability Protocols (Why ZeroMQ Shouldn’t Be Your First Choice)

Sun, 29 Jun 2014 20:44:34 -0600

Earlier this month, I explored ZeroMQ and how it proves to be a promising solution for building fast, high-throughput, and scalable distributed systems. Despite lending itself quite well to these types of problems, ZeroMQ is not without its flaws. Its creators have attempted to rectify many of these shortcomings through spiritual successors Crossroads I/O and nanomsg.

The now-defunct Crossroads I/O is a proper fork of ZeroMQ with the true intention being to build a viable commercial ecosystem around it. Nanomsg, however, is a reimagining of ZeroMQ—a complete rewrite in C ((The author explains why he should have originally written ZeroMQ in C instead of C++.)). It builds upon ZeroMQ’s rock-solid performance characteristics while providing several vital improvements, both internal and external. It also attempts to address many of the strange behaviors that ZeroMQ can often exhibit. Today, I’ll take a look at what differentiates nanomsg from its predecessor and implement a use case for it in the form of service discovery.

Service Discovery on Brave New Geek

Fast, Scalable Networking in Go with Mangos

A Look at Nanomsg and Scalability Protocols (Why ZeroMQ Shouldn’t Be Your First Choice)