Rust in Production

Large companies such as Mozilla, Google and others use Rust for critical projects; you already knew that.
Behind the scenes, however, there are many companies that use Rust in production without this being widely publicized. And when I talk to these companies as a consultant, I always hear the same reasons for choosing Rust.

For companies, it is not mainly the speed of Rust that is decisive, but rather the stability and the reduction of operational complexity and costs.
This talk is also aimed at small and medium-sized companies that are considering Rust. I will provide an insight into the benefits and challenges of Rust and show examples of how Rust is used in practice and some facts and figures behind the decisions made by companies.

Transcript

1. Rust in production Matthias Endler
2. What is Rust?
3. https://www.erps.com.au/what-is-rust
6. Output:
7. Me explaining Rust’s ownership & borrowing, lifetimes, generics and expression syntax You
13. About Rust Research project at Mozilla 2006 2015 Version 1.0 2017 First Rust code in Firefox 2021 Rust Foundation 2024 3.7 million Rust users
14. My rust experience • Using Rust since 2015 • Rust Cologne User Group • “Hello Rust” YouTube channel • Open Source work • Rust consultancy • Rust in production since 2020
15. Why was rust created? • C + + code in Firefox had many security issues. • Multithreaded code is hard to write with C + + (data races).
16. Rust vs other languages Source: Jon Gjengset - Considering Rust
17. vs Python Much faster. Much lower memory use. Multi-threading. Algebraic data types. Pattern matching. Comprehensive static typing, so: Many fewer runtime crashes.
18. vs C/C++ No segfaults. No buffer overflows. No null pointers. No data races. Powerful type system. Unified build system. Dependency management.
19. vs Go No GC pauses; lower memory use. No null pointers. Nicer error handling. Safe concurrency. Stronger type system. Zero-cost abstractions. Dependency management.
20. vs Java No JVM overhead or GC pauses. Much lower memory use. Zero-cost abstractions. ConcurrentModificationException Pattern matching. Unified build system. Dependency management.
21. vs Javascript Multi-threaded by design Stronger typesystem Static typing No runtime overhead Unified build system Zero-cost abstractions
22. comparison rust java go JS/TS Community size Small Large Medium/Large Large ecosystem Small Large Medium Large Operational cost Low High Medium Medium Safety High Low/Medium Low/Medium Low/Medium Performance High Medium Medium Low Tooling Good Okay Okay Okay Complexity High Medium Low Low
23. Tangent: Java runtime behavior Java application Java runtime
24. Tangent: Java runtime behavior Java application Java runtime container
25. Tangent: Java runtime behavior Java application Java runtime container Virtual machine
26. Tangent: Java runtime behavior
27. Tangent: Java runtime behavior Time CPU usage Bootup Jvm optimizations
28. Rust’s strengths
30. “ The reason that people use Rust is because actually it's better for building more reliable systems. Niko Matsakis, Lead of Rust Language Design Team
31. Discord: switching from go to rust https://discord.com/blog/why-discord-is-switching-from-go-to-rust Rust Go
32. Rust vs golang vs java vs python https://medium.com/star-gazers/benchmarking-low-level-i-o-c-c-rust-golang-java-python-9a0d505f85f7
33. Aws: Rust’s impact on serverless pricing
34. Vulnerabilities in Firefox over time
35. Vulnerabilities in Firefox over time Rust introduced
36. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1flUGg6Ut4bjtyWdyH_9emD9EAN01ljTAVft2S4Dq620
37. Security issues are a very real problem • Google ◦ Chromium project finds that around 70% of serious security bugs are memory safety problems • Microsoft ◦ 70% of bugs are memory safety issues ◦ Each bug costs $150,000 to fix ◦ > 70 Million Dollars for fixing those bugs (in 2018 )
38. Relative cost to fix bugs based on time of detection
39. Bugs detected during development cycle
40. Energy consumption
41. Rust’s weaknesses
42. Rust weaknesses • Immature ecosystem • Async/await support still very basic • Lack of developers • Learning curve • Compile times
43. Learning curve
44. “ 50% of developers were productive in Rust after 4 months Google
45. “ It takes several weeks of hard effort Microsoft
46. RUST you
48. Size of programming communities 2023
49. Rust users
50. Major rust usage • Linux Kernel • Windows Kernel • AWS Firecracker • Dropbox storage layer • Deno • Turbopack ( Webpack) • Figma • Cloudflare
51. Major rust usage • Linux Kernel • Windows Kernel • AWS Firecracker • Dropbox storage layer • Deno • Turbopack ( Webpack) • Figma • Cloudflare • Yes, and Crypto
61. https://twitter.com/gamaspace
63. You RN
64. A Case for Your company?
65. Strategies for Rust adoption
66. Popular ways of Rust integration • Network APIs ◦ Microservices ◦ GraphQL • Foreign-Function Interface ( FFI ) ◦ Java ◦ Python ◦ C + + • WebAssembly ◦ Frontend ◦ Plugin-systems
67. Rust Adoption in Network APIs Backend Service 1 Backend Service 2 Backend Service 3 API
68. Rust Adoption in Network APIs Backend Service 1 Backend Service 2 Backend Service 3 API 🐢
69. Rust Adoption in Network APIs Backend Service 1 Backend Service 2 Backend Service 3 API 🐢
70. Rust Adoption in Network APIs Backend Service 1 Backend Service 2 Backend Service 3 API
71. Rust Adoption in monoliths
72. Rust Adoption in monoliths
73. Rust Adoption in monoliths
74. Rust Adoption in monoliths
76. Source VS RUST java
77. java ⏱ 7 days 🤑 $1100/run Source RUST ⏱ 1 day 🤑 $80/run VS
78. Rust adoption in hs-web-app
79. Rust integration in frontends / javascript
80. Requirements for adoption
81. Rust adoption needs a catalyst for success
82. Performance is a weak Catalyst 4x performance boost https://blog.consol.de/software-engineering/web-application-development/rust-vs-quarkus-native-vs-spring-native/
83. Performance is a weak Catalyst 1.5x performance boost https://blog.consol.de/software-engineering/web-application-development/rust-vs-quarkus-native-vs-spring-native/
84. GraphQL Case-Study
85. GraphQL Case-Study
86. 1.The chosen project determines the odds of successful Rust adoption. ( Choose wisely)
87. Finding your first project for rust 1. Fix Pain Points Ideal for performance or concurrency issues. 2. Limit Scope Choose an impactful yet medium-sized projects. 3. Play Rust’s Strengths Find projects benefiting the most from lower operational costs and stability.
88. Recruiting is hard and expensive. Train your own people. ( Or hire me to do it)
89. Adopting rust 1. Identify Project Select a meaningful project for Rust implementation. 2. Team Assessment ◦ Do not hire new staff specifically for Rust. ◦ Evaluate the current team's readiness: ▪ Check for hidden Rust experts. ▪ Consider experience in languages similar to Rust. ( Java, Kotlin, C + + ) ▪ Gauge the team's willingness to learn Rust. 3. Upskilling the Team ◦ Self-guided learning using books and hands-on exercises. ◦ Organize training workshops. ◦ Team augmentation for asking harder questions. ◦ Code reviews to improve the codebase.
90. You need a Long-Term mindset ( Think: years)
91. • Reduce operational costs • Predictable performance • Enable faster development cycles • Less friction between dev and ops • Developer happiness (most loved language for 7 years in a row) • Gradual adoption possible benefits • No quick wins • Steep learning curve • Long build times (locally and in CI ) • Custom libraries required • Need to write integrations with existing code Risks
92. corrode.dev/podcast
94. corrode.dev/podcast