In this article, I attempted to provide both a high-level and detailed overview of how OpenSRF works, how to build and deploy new OpenSRF services, how to make requests to OpenSRF method from OpenSRF clients or over HTTP, and why you should consider it a possible infrastructure for building your next high-performance system that requires the capability to scale out. In addition, I surveyed the Evergreen services built on OpenSRF and reflected on the strengths and weaknesses of the platform based on the experiences of Project Conifer after a year in production, with some thoughts about areas where the right application of skills could make a significant difference to the Evergreen and OpenSRF projects.