In this Post

    Event-driven architecture (EDA) has become a cornerstone of modern software systems, enabling organizations to build responsive, scalable, and loosely coupled applications. At the heart of EDA lies the need for clear, precise communication between services, often represented by AsyncAPI documents.

    3 Ways to Generate AsyncAPI Documents

    There are three ways to generate AsyncAPI documents:

    • Hand Coding: Many teams still manually write AsyncAPI documents in YAML/JSON, especially smaller teams or projects with simple requirements.
    • Code-First Tools: Tools like the AsyncAPI Generator and SDKs (e.g., Java, Node.js libraries) enable teams to generate AsyncAPI documents from existing codebases.
    • Design-First Platforms: Tools and Platforms that provide graphical interfaces to design events visually. These tools generate AsyncAPI documents automatically, reducing manual effort.

    Subscribe to Our Blog
    Get the latest trends, solutions, and insights into the event-driven future every week.

    Thanks for subscribing.

    In this piece I’ll focus on tools that support a design-first approach to building event-driven applications and APIs, especially in generating AsyncAPI documents, but I’ll start with an overview of those three areas.

    While tools like Stoplight Studio and AsyncAPI Studio are valuable, there’s potential for a more engaging experience that brings in visualization, discovery and collaboration into the play.

    Hand Coding

    Creating AsyncAPI documents by hand may seem manageable for small, simple systems, but it quickly becomes unwieldy as complexity grows.

    Issues
    • Error-Prone: High risk of syntax errors, omissions, and inconsistencies in YAML/JSON documents.
    • Time-Consuming: Requires meticulous work, especially for large or complex systems.
    • Hard to Scale: Becomes unmanageable as the architecture grows in size and complexity.
    • Limited Collaboration: Non-technical stakeholders find it difficult to contribute or understand.

    Advantages
    • Full Control: Provides complete freedom to define the AsyncAPI document exactly as needed.
    • Tool Independence: No reliance on external platforms or tools.
    • Flexibility: Can be used for unique, non-standard implementations.

    Disadvantages
    • Lacks automation, increasing manual effort and maintenance overhead.
    • Difficult to maintain versioning or handle evolving systems effectively.

    Code-First Tools

    The code-first approach generates AsyncAPI documents directly from the application code. It is commonly used in projects with existing implementations, ensuring alignment between the documentation and the codebase.

    Issues
    • Tight Coupling with Code: AsyncAPI documents depend heavily on the implementation, making it harder to iterate or plan without writing actual code.
    • Limited Flexibility: Adapting to design changes requires updates to the codebase, which can slow down the process.
    • Lacks Early Collaboration: Non-technical stakeholders are often excluded until the implementation is done.

    Advantages
    • Faster for Existing Codebases: AsyncAPI documents can be automatically generated from code, reducing manual work.
    • Consistency: Documents are tightly aligned with the implementation, ensuring they remain up to date.
    • Integration-Friendly: Works well with CI/CD pipelines to generate and validate documents during the build process.

    Disadvantages
    • Suited for teams with existing codebases, but less effective for greenfield projects or evolving systems.
    • Can create dependencies between documentation and code quality, leading to inaccuracies.

    Design-First Platforms

    The design-first approach focuses on defining AsyncAPI documents before writing any code. It emphasizes planning and collaboration, leveraging tools to visually design and generate documentation, which guides the development process.

    Issues
    • Learning Curve: Tools for design-first approaches (e.g. AsyncAPI Studio and event portals) may have a learning curve for new teams.
    • Initial Setup Effort: Requires upfront investment in tooling and training before generating useful documentation.
    • Tool Dependence: Reliance on specific platforms can create vendor lock-in.

    Advantages
    • More Collaborative: Promotes early collaboration between technical and non-technical stakeholders.
    • Better Visualization: Tools often provide visual interfaces for designing events, schemas and event flows.
    • More Planning-Friendly: Useful for defining event-driven applications and APIs before implementation begins.
    • Better Consistency and Reusability: Encourages standardization and reuse of events across teams.

    Disadvantages
    • Requires clear communication across teams to translate designs into implementations effectively.
    • May not align well with teams that prefer an iterative, code-driven development style.

     

    Why take a Design-First Approach?

    A design-first approach is foundational to building robust asynchronous applications because it integrates key aspects such as design, discovery, reuse, collaboration, and cataloging. By prioritizing design upfront, teams establish a clear, scalable, and reliable architecture, ensuring the system is aligned with business requirements from the start. This reduces ambiguity and streamlines development by addressing complexities early.

    Discovery and cataloging enhance visibility into existing APIs and events, enabling teams to identify reusable components, reducing duplication, and promoting consistency across projects. Collaboration during the design phase fosters alignment among teams, minimizing miscommunication and ensuring everyone works towards a unified goal.

    Cataloging further ensures API documentation is easily accessible and up to date, simplifying onboarding and maintenance while enabling faster iteration cycles. Compared to code-first or hand-coding, a design-first approach not only accelerates development but also results in more cohesive, scalable, and future-proof systems.

    Enter the Event Portal

    Event portals are a new kind of software that address these complexities while empowering teams to fully embrace the potential of EDA. An event portal functions similarly to an API Portal but focuses on events instead of synchronous APIs. It serves as a centralized platform for discovering, designing, cataloging, and managing events, enabling teams to build, scale, and effectively collaborate on event-driven systems.

    Solace pioneered the event portal space with its PubSub+ Event Portal product.

    About Solace PubSub+ Event Portal

    PubSub+ Event Portal is a powerful tool designed to simplify the development and management of event-driven applications. It enables architects and developers to easily design, catalog, and collaborate on event-driven systems using AsyncAPI specifications.

    By providing a centralized repository for event definitions, Event Portal enhances the visibility, consistency, and reusability of events, making it easier to align teams and ensure scalable, reliable event-driven systems. It fosters collaboration and ensures a streamlined, efficient process for building and maintaining APIs and event-driven solutions.

    Event Portal also empowers developers with self-serve access to events enhances efficiency and autonomy. By providing a way to catalog, manage, and automate the lifecycle of events and related assets, it ensures visibility, consistency, and reusability. This streamlines event discovery, fosters collaboration, and accelerates the development of event-driven applications.

    Working closely with popular developer frameworks reduces manual coding by streamlining development, minimizing errors, and accelerating time-to-market. It allows developers to leverage pre-built libraries and integrations, ensuring consistency and compatibility. This synergy enhances productivity, reduces the learning curve for new tools, and enables focus on building core application logic instead of repetitive boilerplate code.

    • Automation & Exportation
      • Eliminates manual coding
      • Microservice interface is consistent with design
    • Consistent Code
      • Developers don’t have to be experts in client libraries
      • Create template with open-source tools

    Advantages of Using PubSub+ Event Portal

    PubSub+ Event Portal transforms how teams design, manage, and evolve event-driven systems. Here’s how it tackles the issues associated with hand-coding AsyncAPI documents:

    Automated AsyncAPI Document Generation

    Event Portal eliminates the need for manual coding by automatically generating AsyncAPI documents based on visual event designs. This ensures:

    • Accuracy: No missing components or misconfigurations.
    • Consistency: Generated documents reflect the actual implementation, reducing the gap between design and execution.

    Built-in Versioning and Lifecycle Management

    Keeping AsyncAPI documents up to date is a challenge, but Event Portal simplifies it with:

    • Version Control:Seamlessly manage event versions, ensuring older versions remain accessible while new ones are propagated.
    • Lifecycle Management:Easily deprecate outdated events and introduce new ones without disrupting the ecosystem.

    Dependency Visualization and Management

    The portal provides a clear visual representation of event dependencies, making it easy to:

    • Map Dependencies:Understand how events and services interconnect.
    • Impact Analysis:Predict and mitigate the effects of changes on dependent systems.
    • Maintain Consistency:Ensure updates cascade correctly across all impacted AsyncAPI documents.

    Centralized Cataloging of Events

    Event Portal acts as a single source of truth for all events and their AsyncAPI documents. Teams can:

    • Search and Reuse:Discover existing events and avoid redundant efforts.
    • Promote Standardization:Maintain uniform event structures across teams and services.

    Unification of API Management

    AsyncAPI documents that represent Event APIs designed in Solace Event Portal are surfaced in existing Developer Portals

    • Discover REST and Event APIs:  Event APIs are presented to developers using AsyncAPIs – like other API documentation standards they are familiar with.
    • Self-service access: developers can gain access to events as and when needed.

    Validation and Compliance

    Manual validation of AsyncAPI documents is tedious, but the Event Portal automates it by:

    • Ensuring Compliance:Validating documents against AsyncAPI standards.
    • Avoiding Runtime Issues:Catching errors early during design and generation.

    Collaborative Design and Management

    With its user-friendly interface, the Event Portal enables collaboration between technical and non-technical stakeholders. Everyone — from developers to business analysts, can contribute to the design and evolution of events without needing expertise in AsyncAPI syntax.

    Conclusion

    When building event-driven systems, it’s important to stay agile and maintain clarity across teams. PubSub+ Event Portal helps you do so in three areas:

    • Automation: From generating AsyncAPI documents to managing versions and dependencies.
    • Visibility: Visual tools that make it easy to design, analyze, and evolve event flows.
    • Scalability: A centralized catalog and robust lifecycle management enable organizations to grow their EDA seamlessly.

    Event Portal owns the complexities so teams can focus on innovation and scalability. By simplifying the creation, management, and evolution of AsyncAPI documents, Event Portal enables organizations to master EDA with confidence.

    Learn More

    Before you go, here are some valuable resources that will give you insights and practical tools to enhance your understanding and development process.

    Explore other posts from categories: API Management | For Developers

    Giri Venkatesan
    Giri Venkatesan

    Giri is a developer advocate with extensive experience in various technical domains, including integration and master data management. He started his engineering journey in the classic EAI & B2B Integration space and has been a part of the integration evolution culminating in modern EDA, microservices, Spring, and other low-code/no-code frameworks. He has a keen interest in building and promoting creative solutions and is a huge fan of open-source standards and applications. He is excited to identify and explore tools and frameworks to aid businesses in their quest for achieving efficiency and increased productivity.

    See all posts written by Giri Venkatesan
    Solly
    Solly

    Subscribe to Our Blog
    Get the latest trends, solutions, and insights into the event-driven future every week.

    Thanks for subscribing.