gRPC over the internet at scale

[cka...@slack-corp.com]

I'm evaluating use of gRPC between mobile clients and servers, and was curious if anyone has experience using gRPC in a production setting, over the internet, at scale. I'm generally curious about the use cases, learning and outcomes of switching to gRPC. A particular area of concern we have is the reliance on HTTP2 and lack of automated fallback to HTTP1. Even if we get all our infrastructure to support terminating HTTP2-gRPC, we are concerned that network middle boxes may interfere with, or block, gRPC connections.

Thanks,

Cy

[Carl Mastrangelo]

I can't speak for most middle boxes, but at least nginx does have pretty good http2 support.   I believe that is pretty common.

The main issue I see with middle boxes is not supporting TLS ALPN (which HTTP/2 depends on).   This is common in packet inspecting firewalls, which lag in functionality.

That said, Google is gainfully using gRPC in some flagship Android applications, so it definitely has some experience in exotic environments.

[Cyrus Katrak]

Thanks Carl, knowing that Google is deploying gRPC on mobile clients certainly inspires confidence in this use case. Can you share more details, like which apps?

Yes, our concern with network middle boxes is primarily around their lack of support / active blocking of HTTP2 upgrades.

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[Carl Mastrangelo]

I can't go into details, about the apps, sorry.