Google Pub/Sub - Data Streaming
Topics, subscriptions, push vs pull, ordering, dead lettering, exactly-once delivery, monitoring, schema registry
1What is the main architectural characteristic of Google Pub/Sub?
What is the main architectural characteristic of Google Pub/Sub?
Answer
Google Pub/Sub is a serverless asynchronous messaging service that decouples message producers from consumers. Publishers send messages to topics without knowing the subscribers, and subscribers receive messages via subscriptions without knowing the publishers. This architecture enables independent horizontal scaling on both sides.
2What is the fundamental difference between a topic and a subscription in Pub/Sub?
What is the fundamental difference between a topic and a subscription in Pub/Sub?
Answer
A topic is a named channel to which publishers send messages, while a subscription is a named entity representing a subscriber's interest in receiving messages from a topic. A topic can have multiple subscriptions, and each subscription receives a copy of every message published to the topic.
3When should a pull subscription be preferred over a push subscription?
When should a pull subscription be preferred over a push subscription?
Answer
A pull subscription is preferable when the subscriber needs to control the message consumption rate (flow control), process large batches, or when the execution environment cannot expose a public HTTPS endpoint. Pull also makes it easier to handle load spikes by dynamically adjusting the number of messages retrieved.
How does the acknowledgement mechanism work in Pub/Sub?
What is the role of a dead letter topic in Pub/Sub?
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