Using Graph Manager with v2.0

Apollo Server provides reporting, persisted queries, and cache-control headers in native javascript by default, so often times moving to Apollo Server 2 without the Engine proxy is possible. For services that already contain the Engine proxy and depend on its full response caching, Apollo Server continues to support it with first class functionality. With Apollo Server 2, the Engine proxy can be started by the same node process. If the Engine proxy is running in a dedicated machine, Apollo Server 2 supports the cache-control and tracing extensions, used to communicate with the proxy.

Stand-alone Apollo Server

Apollo Server 2 is able to replace all the metrics-reporting functionality which once required the Apollo Engine Proxy. To enable metrics reporting in Apollo Server 2, add ENGINE_API_KEY as an environment variable. With this setting enabled, Apollo Server 2 will automatically send execution traces directly to Apollo Graph Manager. In addition, by default, Apollo Server supports persisted queries without needing the proxy's cache. Apollo Server also sets Cache-Control headers for consumption by a CDN. Integrating a CDN provides an alternative to the full response caching inside of Engine proxy.

const { ApolloServer } = require('apollo-server');

const server = new ApolloServer({
  typeDefs,
  resolvers,
});

server.listen().then(({ url }) => {
  console.log(`🚀 Server ready at ${url}`);
});

For more information, see the CDN section of the Performance guide.

Starting Engine Proxy

Some infrastructure already contains the Engine proxy and requires it for full response caching, so it is necessary to run the proxy as a process alongside Apollo Server. If full response caching is not necessary, then the Engine proxy can be completely replaced by Apollo Server 2. The apollo-engine package provides integrations with many node frameworks, including express, and starts the Engine proxy alongside Apollo Server. The following code demonstrates how to start the proxy with Apollo Server 2. It assumes that the ENGINE_API_KEY environment variable is set to the api key of the service.

const { ApolloEngine } = require('apollo-engine');
const { ApolloServer } = require('apollo-server-express');
const express = require('express');

const app = express();
const server = new ApolloServer({
  typeDefs,
  resolvers,
  tracing: true,
  cacheControl: true,
  // We set `engine` to false, so that the new agent is not used.
  engine: false,
});

server.applyMiddleware({ app });

const engine = new ApolloEngine({
  apiKey: process.env.ENGINE_API_KEY,
});

engine.listen({
  port: 4000,
  graphqlPaths: ['/api/graphql'],
  expressApp: app,
  launcherOptions: {
    startupTimeout: 3000,
  },
}, () => {
  console.log('Listening!');
});

To set the default max age inside of cacheControl, some additional options must be specified:

const server = new ApolloServer({
  typeDefs,
  resolvers,
  tracing: true,
  cacheControl: {
    defaultMaxAge: 5,
    stripFormattedExtensions: false,
    calculateCacheControlHeaders: false,
  },
  // We set `engine` to false, so that the new agent is not used.
  engine: false,
});

With a Running Engine Proxy

If the Engine proxy is already running in a container in front of Apollo Server, then set tracing and cacheControl to true. These options will provide the extensions information to the proxy to create traces and ensure caching. We set engine to false, so that the new metrics reporting pipeline is not activated.

const { ApolloServer } = require('apollo-server');

const server = new ApolloServer({
  typeDefs,
  resolvers,
  tracing: true,
  cacheControl: true,
  // We set `engine` to false, so that the new agent is not used.
  engine: false,
});

server.listen().then(({ url }) => {
  console.log(`🚀 Server ready at ${url}`);
});