Mission critical and versatile applications are to be built using the highly popular MSA pattern. Monolithic applications are being consciously dismantled using the MSA paradigm to be immensely right and relevant for their users and owners. Microservices are the new building block for constructing next-generation applications. Microservices are easily manageable, independently deployable, horizontally scalable, relatively simple services. Microservices are publicly discoverable, network accessible, interoperable, API-driven, composed, replaceable, and highly isolated.
The future software development is primarily finding appropriate microservices. Here are few advantages of the MSA style:
- Scalability: Any production-grade application typically can use three types of scaling. The x-axis scaling is for horizontally scalability. That is, the application has to be cloned to guarantee high availability. The second type of scale is y-axis scaling. This is for splitting the application into various application functionalities. With microservices architecture, applications (legacy, monolithic, and massive) are partitioned into a collection of easily manageable microservices. Each unit fulfils one responsibility. The third is the z-axis scaling, which is for partitioning or sharding the data. The database plays a vital role in shaping up dynamic applications. With NoSQL databases, the concept of sharing came into prominence.
- Availability: Multiple instances of microservices are deployed in different containers (Docker) to guarantee high availability. Through this redundancy, the service and application availability is ensured. With multiple instances of services are being hosted and run through Docker containers, the load-balancing of service instances is utilized to ensure the high-availability of services. The widely used circuit breaker pattern is used to accomplish the much-needed fault-tolerance. That is, the redundancy of services through instances ensures high availability, whereas the circuit-breaker pattern guarantees the resiliency of services. Service registry, discovery, and configuration capabilities are to lead the development and discovery of newer services to bring forth additional business (vertical) and IT (horizontal) services. With services forming a dynamic and ad hoc service meshes, the days of service communication, collaboration, corroborations, and correlations are not too far away.
- Continuous deployment: Microservices are independently deployable, horizontally scalable, and self-defined. Microservices are decoupled/lightly coupled and cohesive fulfilling the elusive mandate of modularity. The dependency imposed issues get nullified by embracing this architectural style. This leads to the deployment of any service independent of one another for faster and more continuous deployment.
- Loose coupling: As indicated previously, microservices are autonomous and independent by innately providing the much-needed loose coupling. Every microservice has its own layered- architecture at the service level and its own database at the backend.
- Polyglot microservices: Microservices can be implemented through a variety of programming languages. As such, there is no technology lock-in. Any technology can be used to realize microservices. Similarly, there is no compulsion for using certain databases. Microservices work with any file system SQL databases, NoSQL and NewSQL databases, search engines, and so on.
- Performance: There are performance engineering and enhancement techniques and tips in the microservices arena. For example, high-blocking calls services are implemented in the single threaded technology stack, whereas high CPU usage services are implemented using multiple threads.
There are other benefits for business and IT teams by employing the fast-maturing and stabilizing microservices architecture. The tool ecosystem is on the climb, and hence implementing and involving microservices gets simplified and streamlined. Automated tools ease and speed up building and operationalizing microservices.