FileWave: why we moved from ZeroMQ to NATS

FileWave Device Management System

Filewave is a cross-platform/multi-platform Device Management System that helps big organizations to manage their devices from a single interface.​

We are able to manage devices of different platforms:

• ​Windows

• macOS

• iOS

• Apple TV

• Android

• Chromebook

​and we’re able to:

• Get inventory data (CPU, RAM, free disk space, …)

• Install software and updates

• Send specific commands (reboot, lock , …) to devices​

FileWave Before NATS

​Before we switched to NATS, the internal messaging was implemented using ZeroMQ.

ZeroMQ is a library that offers several mechanisms and patterns to implement a lot of different communication strategies. It works well but has several limitations (for our use case):

• It’s just a library: so we had to implement a “central” server

• A single socket can use just a single pattern; if you need a PUB/SUB and a REQ/REPLY you have to open two sockets

• Not supported in web applications; the messaging with the WEB interfaces was implemented by “converting” ZeroMQ messages and sending them to the UI using SSE (Server Sent Event)

• It does not support out-of-the-box TLS

• It does not support use cases that require persistence

Why we needed to migrate

​The main drivers for migrations were:​

• We have strict requirements for having TLS on all communication channels

• We need support for web applications

• Message persistence and replay are something we’ll need to use soon​

Why NATS?

​We did some research based on our needs:

• ​Client libraries for (at least) C/C++, Python, Web Browsers

• Cloud-ready/friendly

• mTLS support

• Easy to install/configure and monitor

• With good documentation and community

And we found a few candidates:

• RabbitMQ

• Kafka

• NATS

​We decided then to do some parallel investigations and, based on our specific use cases - we decided that NATS was the best choice for us.

The main drivers for picking NATS were:

• ​Easy to integrate into our installers (thanks to Go)

• By far the simplest to install and configure

• Very small install size and memory footprint (thanks to the Go engine)

• Pre-built binaries for all platforms we need to support

• Wide-range of authentication systems (for instance we use mTLS for devices and server components and JWT for authenticating users on User Interfaces)