This repository contains the implementation of a simulation where customers may select products and interact with those products on a display. These interactions are cataloged on the backend and later can be analysed.

The technologies chosen to implement the system were:

• Protocol buffers (protobuf) to represent and serialize/deserialize the data structures for transmission over the network
• gRPC to implement the endpoint on the server side and the stub on the client side. Remote Procedure Calls are strongly typed and can offer several advantages over pure GET/POST requests
• C++ to implement the code, given the language is very fast, portable, and has seen a renaissance
• Docker to encapsulate and deploy both server and client. The images have been configured to contain all the required dependencies

This project assumes you have Docker installed and running on youur computer. It also assumes you have a working internet connection.

git clone https://github.com/dcirne/perch.git

cd perch

Build the server

docker build -f Dockerfile.backend -t backend .

Build the simulation (client)

docker build -f Dockerfile.simulation -t simulation .

Create a network where client and server are visible, and referrable, to each other

docker network create --subnet 172.20.0.0/16 --ip-range 172.20.240.0/20 perch_demo

Running: Open two terminals. On the first termianl run the server container

docker run --net=perch_demo --ip 172.20.128.2 backend

On the second terminal run the simulation container

docker run --net=perch_demo --ip 172.20.128.3 simulation

The simulation client is time bount and will exit by itself. The server container will not exit automatically and needs to be terminated manually.

List the containers

docker container ls

Stop the backend container

docker kill <CONTAINER ID>