Backend Basics

The AcceleratXR backend platform utilizes a micro-services based architecture composed of more than two dozen unique services. Each of these services provides a singularly focused set of functionality within the platform. Functionality such as user account management (acount-services), player achievements (achievement-services), virtual economy (economy-services), matchmaking (matchmaking-services) and more.

True to micro-service principles each service within the platform maintains strict database access isolation and uses a post/push methodology for performing write operations and delivering changes. As a result, no two services will have access to the same database content. All write operations must be performed through a service’s REST API. Data changes are then distributed either via REST API polling or via push messaging. Push data is sent to other services via a common messaging bus such as redis while clients can optionally register for notifications to be delivered via a secured websocket connection.

Authentication is managed using a distributed JSON Web Token with each service having the capability to decode and verify any given access token. The JWT access token contains all relevant information for a service to be able to perform work on behalf of a given user including any relevant permissions and roles.

While the platform can be deployed using a variety of different methods Kubernetes has been selected as the preferred orchestration system due to its powerful features, simplicity and ability to run in virtually any environment.

In order to provide a unified set of endpoints for communicating with the platform nginx is utilized as the primary load balancer and reverse proxy for all of AcceleratXR’s backend services.

Lastly, the Prometheus server is leveraged for gathering real-time statistics as well as providing Kubernetes with the necessary metrics for performing automatic scaling of individual services.