Nowadays, software is not only used for providing services but is also used to develop business. The best-performing software allows a business to grow. Today's application software shouldn't focus on a specific device such as a computer; instead, it should be able to support any platform. As architects, we have to focus on the design of the software application at the time of development. It must be scalable, either vertically or horizontally, and it should be able to cope with millions, or even billions, of requests per second.

In this chapter, we will discuss application architecture patterns, such as the conventional monolithic architecture pattern and the microservice architecture pattern. We will look at where the concept of conventional monolithic architecture comes from and what advantages it has relating to the software development life cycle. We will also explain the limitations of the monolithic architecture, which leads to the need to build loosely-coupled systems, otherwise known as the microservice architecture.

By the end of this chapter, you will be able to understand the traditional approach to building software solutions by adopting a monolithic architecture pattern. You will read about the evolution of the architecture pattern from monolithic to microservice-related. We will also provide a detailed explanation of the microservice architecture and information about how it can be used in this chapter.

This chapter will cover the following topics:

• The monolithic architecture pattern:
  • Example
  • Benefits
  • Limitations
• The microservice architecture pattern:
  • Example
  • Benefits
  • Limitations
• Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)
• SOA versus microservice architecture

Let’s get started and look at these topics in detail.