Asynchronous & Synchronous Messaging with RabbitMQ in Rails

Ready to revolutionize your Rails architecture? Dive into RabbitMQ. We’ll show you how to implement powerful messaging patterns – from background tasks (asynchronous) to real-time interactions (synchronous) – making your app resilient, blazingly fast, and fault-tolerant.

Ever wonder how big apps handle tons of tasks without slowing down? Or how different parts of an app talk to each other reliably? This talk is your guide to using RabbitMQ in your Rails projects to do just that. It’s all about making your app faster, more reliable, and easier to grow.

We’ll start by explaining what a message broker is and why it’s super useful. Then, we’ll walk through how to set up RabbitMQ and get your Rails app talking to it using a powerful tool called the bunny gem.

You’ll learn to send messages for tasks that don’t need an instant reply – like sending emails or processing images – all happening quietly in the background. This makes your app feel snappier because users don’t have to wait around.

But that’s not all! We’ll also dive into a cool way to get immediate answers using RabbitMQ, called RPC (Remote Procedure Call). Think of it like making a direct request and getting a reply right away. You’ll see exactly when this is handy, how it works, and what to keep in mind.

By the end of this session, you’ll understand how RabbitMQ can powerfully upgrade your Rails applications by helping you:

1. Connect services easily: Different parts of your app can work independently, making development simpler and more flexible.

2 .Handle more users: Your app can manage lots of messages and tasks without breaking a sweat, even during busy times.

1. Prevent crashes: Messages won’t get lost, even if a part of your app temporarily stops working, ensuring reliability.

2. Speed things up: By moving slow, heavy tasks to the background, your app stays quick and responsive for users.

3. Talk in different ways: It supports various communication styles, fitting different needs for your app’s parts.

4. Work with other tech: RabbitMQ plays nicely with different programming languages and systems, making it super versatile.

Come join us and give your Rails apps a powerful upgrade with message queues, making them super reliable and a joy for users!

This talk is for Rails developers. You don’t need to know RabbitMQ already, but understanding a bit about how different service parts talk to each other, like in microservices, will definitely help.

Technical Requirements: We’ll be working with a standard Rails application. To follow along or understand the examples, you’ll need:

A RabbitMQ server running (you can easily set this up locally using Homebrew or Docker).

The bunny gem installed in your Rails project.

Code Examples: We’ll show you real, live code examples that you can immediately use. These won’t just be snippets; we’ll walk through practical implementations for:

Sending messages for background tasks (asynchronous).

Getting instant replies from other services (synchronous RPC).

Why I’m the best person to speak on this subject: I have around 4+ years of experience working with Rails, and I’ve personally implemented RabbitMQ for inter-service communication in a couple of projects. From the start, I’ve been passionate about this technology and wanted to share my knowledge and experiences with the community.