NATS - Message Bus

Status

Candidate - Under consideration for approval

Owner

[To be assigned]

Description

NATS is a high-performance message bus for high-throughput event streaming and real-time communication between distributed systems.

Why This Should Be a Key Abstraction

NATS is being considered as the standard message bus for GitLab because it provides:

1. High Throughput: Handles millions of messages per second
2. Low Latency: Optimized for real-time event streaming
3. Cloud Native: Well-suited for distributed architectures

Use Cases

Use NATS for:

• Durable message bus
• Very high throughput event streaming
• Real-time data processing pipelines
• Event-driven architectures requiring low latency

Do Not Use For

Do not use NATS for:

• Core GitLab functionality that must work in all deployment environments
• Standard background processing that Sidekiq can handle

Integration Considerations

Self-Managed Limitations

NATS is not suitable for self-managed foundational (core) features because:

• Not all self-managed instances may have NATS deployed (yet)
• Adds operational complexity for customers

Related Key Abstractions

• Sidekiq - Alternative for standard background processing
• PostgreSQL - May be used alongside NATS for persistent data storage
• Redis - Used by Sidekiq; may complement NATS for caching