The ultimate gist of DDD

By Dino Esposito
4/17/2024

Contents

The context map

The outcome of a DDD analysis of business domain requirements is a collection of bounded contexts that, when combined, form the whole set of functions to implement. How are bounded contexts connected? Interestingly, connection occurs at two distinct levels. One is the physical connection between running host processes. As mentioned, such connections can take the form of HTTPS, SignalR, shared databases, or message buses. But another equally important level of connection is logical and collaborative rather than physical. The following sections explore the types of business relationships supported between bounded contexts.

Bounded contexts and their relationships form a graph that DDD defines as the context map. In the map, each bounded context is connected to others with which it is correlated in terms of functionalities. It doesn’t have to be a physical connection, though. Often, it looks much more like a logical dependency.

Upstream and downstream

Each DDD relationship between two bounded contexts is rendered with an arc connecting two nodes of a graph. More precisely, the arc has a directed edge characterized by the letter U (upstream context) or D (downstream context). (See Figure 2-6.)

FIGURE 2-6 Graphical notation of a context map relationship.

An upstream bounded context influences a downstream bounded context, but the opposite is not true. Such an influence may take various forms. Obviously, the code in the upstream context is available as a reference to the downstream context. It also means, though, that the schedule of work in the upstream context cannot be changed on demand by the team managing the downstream context. Furthermore, the response of the upstream team to requests for change may not be as prompt as desired by the downstream team.

Starting from the notion of upstream and downstream contexts, DDD defines a few specific types of relationships. Essentially, each relationship defines a different type of mutual dependency between involved contexts. These relationships are as follows:

Conformist A conformist relationship indicates that the code in the downstream context is totally dependent on the code in the upstream context. At the end of the day, this means that if a breaking change happens upstream, the downstream context must adapt and conform. By design, the downstream context has no room to negotiate about changes. Typically, a conformist relationship exists when the upstream context is based on some legacy code or is an external service (for example, a public API) placed outside the control of the development teams. Another possible scenario is when the chief architect sets one context as high priority, meaning that any changes the team plans must be reflected, by design, by all other contexts and teams.
Customer/supplier In this parent–child type of relationship, the downstream customer context depends on the upstream supplier context and must adapt to any changes. Unlike the conformist relationship, though, with the customer/supplier relationship, the two parties are encouraged to negotiate changes that may affect each other. For example, the downstream customer team can share concerns and expect that the upstream supplier team will address them in some way. Ultimately, though, the final word belongs to the upstream supplier context.
Partner The partner relationship is a form of mutual dependency set between the two involved bounded contexts. Put another way, both contexts depend on each other for the actual delivery of the code. This means that no team is allowed to make changes to the public interface of the context without consulting with the other team and reaching a mutual agreement.

An example context map

Considering this discussion of bounded contexts and relationships, one might reasonably ask how these work in a realistic example. Figure 2-4 showed an example breakdown of a sport-tech data-collection business domain. Figure 2-7 shows a possible set of relationships for that scenario.

FIGURE 2.7 An example context map for the bounded contexts identified in Figure 2-4.

Let’s review the diagram proceeding from left to right:

The Live Scoring context dominates the Data Dispatcher and Live Monitor contexts. So, any changes required for the Live Scoring context must be immediately accepted and reflected by the downstream contexts. This is reasonable, because the Data Dispatcher context is simply expected to route live information to takers and the Live Monitor context just proxies live data for internal scouting and analysis. Indeed, both relationships could be set to conformist, which is even stricter.
The Live Scoring context partners with the Event Operations context. This is because in the architect’s vision, the two modules may influence each other, and changes in one may be as important as changes in the other. A similar production system might have a partner relationship between the Live Scoring and Event Operations contexts, in which case it’s often true that one team must conform to changes requested by the other (always for strict business reasons).
The Event Operations context is totally dependent on the legacy applications connected to the system. This means that live data should be packaged and pushed in exactly the legacy format, with no room for negotiation.
The Data Dispatcher context and the Event Operations context are partners, as both contexts collect and shape data to be distributed to the outside world, such as to media and IT partners.
The Third-Party Widgets context contains widgets designed to be embedded in websites. As such, they are subject to conditions set by the Data Dispatcher context. From the perspective of the widget module, the dispatcher is a closed external system.

An example deployment map

The context map is a theoretical map of functions. It says nothing about the actual topology of the deployment environment. In fact, as mentioned, a bounded context may even be a class library coded in an application that turns out to be another bounded context. Often, a bounded context maps to a deployed (web) service, but this is not a general rule. That said, let’s imagine a possible deployment map for the context map in Figure 2-7. Figure 2-8 shows a quite realistic high-level deployment scenario for a sport-tech data-collection platform.