Managing Contextual Metadata Across a gRPC Ecosystem

Netflix’s Nicholas Hagen dives into the tricky world of “bonus” data—think session info, routing rules and failure-testing flags—that every microservice craves but rarely agrees on. He walks us through how Netflix uses protobuf to enforce strict schemas in a polyglot environment (gRPC, REST, you name it) and leverages gRPC metadata headers to ferry that context around.

Along the way, you’ll pick up real-world tips on scaling, managing and observing your metadata pipeline, plus lessons learned from keeping a sprawling cloud-native ecosystem in sync. Perfect for anyone wrestling with cross-language, cross-framework coordination headaches.

Watch on YouTube