Service-to-service communication in Spring Boot - Cheat Sheet & Quick Revision

Recall & Review

beginner

What is service-to-service communication in Spring Boot?

It is when two or more Spring Boot applications talk to each other directly to share data or trigger actions without user involvement.

beginner

Name two common ways Spring Boot services communicate with each other.

They use REST APIs over HTTP or messaging systems like RabbitMQ or Kafka for asynchronous communication.

intermediate

What is the role of RestTemplate or WebClient in Spring Boot?

They are tools to send HTTP requests from one service to another, making it easy to call REST APIs.

intermediate

Why use asynchronous messaging for service communication?

It helps services work independently without waiting, improving speed and reliability when handling many requests.

advanced

What is a common pattern to secure service-to-service communication?

Using tokens like JWT or mutual TLS to verify each service's identity before sharing data.

Which Spring Boot tool is recommended for reactive HTTP calls between services?

A RestTemplate

B RabbitMQ

C WebClient

D Kafka

WebClient supports reactive and non-blocking HTTP calls, unlike RestTemplate which is blocking.

What does asynchronous messaging help with in service communication?

A Slowing down requests

B Making services wait for each other

C Replacing REST APIs

D Improving speed and decoupling services

Asynchronous messaging lets services work independently, improving speed and reducing tight coupling.

Which protocol is commonly used for synchronous service-to-service communication?

A HTTP/REST

B SMTP

C FTP

D MQTT

HTTP with REST APIs is the standard for synchronous communication between services.

What is a benefit of using JWT tokens in service communication?

A They slow down communication

B They verify service identity securely

C They replace HTTP

D They store large files

JWT tokens help services prove who they are, securing communication.

Which Spring Boot feature helps automatically discover and call other services?

A Spring Cloud Discovery Client

B Spring Security

C Spring Data JPA

D Spring MVC

Spring Cloud Discovery Client helps services find each other dynamically.

Explain how two Spring Boot services can communicate synchronously and asynchronously.

Think about direct HTTP calls versus message queues.

Describe common security methods to protect service-to-service communication in Spring Boot.

Consider how services prove who they are.