In recent years async I/O has become one of the main trends of the industry. On the JVM, libraries such as Netty and Finagle have commoditised async I/O to the extent that it is now the go-to model for many projects. Yet despite its growing popularity, async I/O remains problematic and misunderstood on many levels; Plagued by complexity, compatibility and maturity issues for years, slow progress is being made to provide ample async solutions for the future.
This talk aims to provide an overview of asynchronous and non-blocking I/O, its pros and cons, current challenges and emerging solutions. The talk will focus on JVM and Linux.