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Semicolony ELI5 · comic

Service discovery.

A live company directory services check to find each other, instead of memorising addresses that keep changing.

  1. Wrong number again.
    stale! 10.0.0.7 10.0.4.2?
    1

    In the cloud, addresses keep changing — a hard-coded one is stale within minutes.

  2. Payments, checking in.
    REGISTRY payments register
    2

    So each service registers with Dee’s directory the moment it starts up.

  3. dropped
    3

    Dee health-checks the entries and quietly drops any that stop responding.

  4. Where’s payments?
    orders where? REGISTRY
    4

    A caller just asks the directory by name instead of memorising a number.

  5. Here — this one’s up.
    10.0.4.2
    5

    Dee hands back a current, healthy address to call.

  6. DIRECTORY payments→…orders→…search→… ask by name, always current
    6

    Nobody memorises numbers; everyone asks by name, and the map is always current.

A staff directory that updates itself: register on start, look up by name, drop the dead.
Semicolony semicolony.dev/eli5/service-discovery/comic
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