FIRST STEP TOWARDS MICROSERVICES
BY SONAM THAKUR -NOVEMBER 27,2022
Microservices are an architectural and organizational approach to software development where software is composed of small independent services that communicate over well-defined APIs. These services are owned by small, self-contained teams.
MICROSERVICE ARCHITECTURE:
With a microservices architecture, an application is built as independent components that run each application process as a service. These services communicate via a well-defined interface using lightweight APIs. Services are built for business capabilities and each service performs a single function. Because they are independently run, each service can be updated, deployed, and scaled to meet demand for specific functions of an application.
With monolithic architectures, all processes are tightly coupled and run as a single service. This means that if one process of the application experiences a spike in demand, the entire architecture must be scaled.
Characteristics of Microservices
Autonomous
Each component service in a microservices architecture can be developed, deployed, operated, and scaled without affecting the functioning of other services. Services do not need to share any of their code or implementation with other services. Any communication between individual components happens via well-defined APIs.
Specialized
Each service is designed for a set of capabilities and focuses on solving a specific problem. If developers contribute more code to a service over time and the service becomes complex, it can be broken into smaller services.
The Most Complete Platform for Microservices
AWS has integrated building blocks that support any application architecture, regardless of scale, load, or complexity.
Microservices — also known as the microservice architecture — is an architectural style that structures an application as a collection of services that are
- Highly maintainable and testable
- Loosely coupled
- Independently deployable
- Organized around business capabilities
- Owned by a small team
The microservice architecture enables the rapid, frequent and reliable delivery of large, complex applications. It also enables an organization to evolve its technology stack.
To understand the present, it helps to understand the past. Traditionally, software was designed in a monolithic style, and everything ran together as a single application. Like everything else in life, there are some pros and cons to this style of application.
Monoliths aren’t inherently bad — and many microservice advocates actually recommend starting out with a monolith and sticking with it until you start running into problems. You can then break your monolith into microservices naturally over time.
Building a Microservices Architecture
At this point, developers may choose to divide a monolith’s functionality into small, independently running microservices. The microservices loosely connect via APIs to form a microservices-based application architecture. Microservices architecture offers greater agility and pluggability because enterprises can independently develop, deploy, and scale each microservice. They can do this without necessarily incurring service outages, negatively impacting other parts of the application, or needing to refactor other microservices. The process is simpler, and when one part of the application needs to be adjusted or upgraded, this may be done without affecting everything else. The entire system is made more manageable.
As you can see, there are many advantages of MICROSERVICES. They are more likely to be used by enterprises that have outgrown the original monolith system, but many companies now design their microservices architecture from the beginning. They learn from the mistakes of others and have discovered that it is easier to start out with a plan for expansion.
Here are the steps to designing a microservices architecture:
1. Understand the monolith
Study the operation of the monolith and determine the component functions and services it performs. Since all the functions will be mixed together, this may pose a challenge. It is an important part of determining what is needed for the microservices, so it should be the first thing developers focus on.
2. Develop the microservices
Develop each function of the application as an autonomous, independently running microservice. These usually run in a container on a cloud server. Each microservice answers to a single function — search, shipping, payment, accounting, payroll, etc. This allows for minor changes to be made without disrupting the other processes.
3. Integrate the larger application
Loosely integrate the microservices via API gateways, so they work in concert to form the larger application. An iPaaS can play an essential role in this step. Each microservice will work with the others to provide the necessary functions. Each section can be adjusted, adapted, or even removed without too much impact on the other parts of the application.
4. Allocate system resources
Use container orchestration tools like Kubernetes to manage the allocation of system resources for each microservice. This step helps keep everything organized and ensures the entire system works as a whole.
COMPANIES BENEFITED FROM MICROSERVICES:
Microservices allow companies to quickly build, scale, and enhance their minimum viable products (MVP), proofs of concept (PoC), and full-scale applications. There are many advantages, such as scalability, operational efficiency, and the ability to maintain the product even if something goes wrong.
That way if something fails, only one feature goes down, instead of the whole product. Which today, in the era of fierce competition and multiple products.
A brief list of companies using microservices
1. Netflix. The company is considered among the pioneers in the world of microservices. The giant is using them for server maintenance and incredible reliability. It also monitors the popularity of movies and TV shows. Combining microservices with algorithms gives the company a competitive advantage and lets it produce shows people really want to watch.
2. Amazon. In 2001 Amazon had a big monolith. In 2021 almost everyone knows about Amazon Web Services (AWS) — an in-house solution that was so good that it turned into a commercial, cloud computing service. Microservices are fantastic for ecommerce — they track user behavior, purchases, even the entire sales funnel. Then, they generate data helpful in optimizing product presentation and the sales process itself. That is what works for Amazon; it can work for you too.
3. Uber. This famous taxi-hailing app had a monolith product. With exponential and global growth, Uber needed performance to keep up with the scale. Processes like driver management, passenger management, billing, or notifications became so painful, the company turned to microservices for performance and smooth business operations. Today, with microservices managing all business processes, the company is a widely recognized brand with millions of clients and countless in-house operations every day.
4. Spotify. Over 365 million active users worldwide and “only” 75+ in the moment of the change. Spotify can be widely known but their inner struggles suggest growing pains and are slightly less known. The company built 90 autonomous, full-stack teams to build and manage the service while it grew over the years, countries, and continents. If you want to hear your favorite track, you just hit the play button. To make it happen and seem invisible in nature, there are hundreds of specialists and thousands of functionalities that couldn’t be run as smoothly in the monolithic architecture.
5.SoundCloud. SoundCloud might be known for an exceptional collection of music and podcasts but with multiple hours uploaded on the platform every single minute, load and maintenance challenges are through the roof. That’s why the company adopted a microservice architecture that had replaced a legacy and monolithic in nature, Rails. Today, the company builds its product with multiple technologies in mind but only through microservices.
6. Karma. A telecommunication provider that found a problem in its daily operations. When the company grew, it became increasingly difficult to track the number of clients, points of access, billings, and more. The company replaced a monolithic architecture with microservices for business efficiency.
17. eBay. At, microservices had been a blessing. With thousands of services sending API calls and back-end services running tasks like shipping, this giant needed an effective solution for a growing load and performance problem. With a new approach, eBay is among companies using microservices to optimize their business operations and ecommerce.
CONCLUSION:
Over the last few years, microservices have gone from an overhyped buzzword to something you should understand as a software engineer.
According to an O’Reilly developer survey in 2020:
- 61% of companies have been using microservices in the last year
- 29% say at least half of their company systems are built using microservices
- 74% say their teams own the build/test/deploy phases of their applications
THANKYOU STAY TUNED FOR LATEST UPDATES!