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Saga Pattern

Description

The Saga Pattern is a design pattern used to manage long-running business transactions in a distributed system. It breaks the transaction into a series of smaller steps, with each step executed by a service. If a failure occurs, compensating actions are triggered to roll back previous steps.

How It Works

  1. Choreography: Services communicate through events to execute the steps.
  2. Orchestration: A central controller coordinates and manages the saga’s steps.

Advantages

  • Data Consistency: Ensures eventual consistency in distributed systems.
  • Fault Tolerance: Compensating actions handle failures gracefully.

Challenges

  • Complexity: Implementing compensating actions and managing workflows is challenging.
  • Debugging: Harder to trace failures in large-scale sagas.

Example Use Case

An e-commerce order process:

  1. Order service places an order.
  2. Inventory service reserves stock.
  3. Payment service processes payment.
  4. If payment fails, the compensating action releases the reserved stock.