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Microservices

▾ 2 MINUTE READ — CLOSE

Microservices are Built, Deployed and Managed Independently

Microservices are an architectural approach to software development based on building an application as a collection of small services. There is no standard definition for what amount of code constitutes a “small service.” But some experts say it’s about the size at which a team can query the service’s health with a single request that returns a “yes” or “no” answer. Similarly, a service is too big if it requires more than one team to manage it.

Each service has its own unique and well-defined role, runs in its own process and communicates via HTTP APIs or messaging. Each microservice can be deployed, upgraded, scaled and restarted independently of all the sibling services in the application. They are typically orchestrated by an automated system, making it possible to have frequent updates of live applications without affecting the end users.

Microservices Advantages

Microservices are an evolution of a service-oriented architecture (SOA) — and some would argue that microservices are just SOA rebranded to make it hip again. But really, cloud native microservices take the SOA concept to a new level. The difference now is that cloud infrastructure has finally caught up to the SOA concept, so that loosely-coupled services (aka microservices) are now feasible to implement and manage at scale.

By enabling small autonomous teams to develop, deploy and scale their respective services independently, microservices essentially parallelize development, thereby speeding up the production cycle exponentially.

Adoption of microservices is closely correlated with the use of DevOps, continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) and containers. Container-based — and open source — systems like Docker and Kubernetes are a very effective way to develop, deploy and manage microservices. Many mature and robust tools, platforms and other services already exist in the container space, rendering containerization a natural fit for microservices-based applications.

Microservices Disadvantages

Microservices have many advantages, but migrating away from a monolith introduces its own set of challenges. With a microservices architecture, service discovery, networking, testing and monitoring all become more complex and difficult, if not impossible, to manage following reliable older systems and practices. And the problem is amplified as the number of services grow. Tools that once seemed essential, such as logging, are now racking up huge bills that can send a microservices migration into negative ROI territory. Thus, there are many business and process decisions involved in transitioning to a microservices-based architecture.

In a true microservices approach, teams run only the exact small services they need, and nothing else. It’s a sleek setup, but these services are not aware of each other until you step in to orchestrate them. Until recently, this implementation and orchestration piece have been beyond the engineering reach of many smaller to mid-size organizations.

A Market Leap Forward for Microservices Offerings

Fortunately, a market leap forward is now happening with microservices. There is a virtual tech sector land rush on, with companies feverishly producing not just microservices themselves, but the platforms, tools and frameworks necessary for joining them seamlessly together.

At this early stage in the developing ecosystem around microservices, it can be difficult to gauge both best fit and ultimate longevity. Despite the abundant potential benefits, microservices are not the right solution for every project. A well-built monolithic architecture can scale just as well, and remains the best option, in many scenarios.

Still, there are many companies for which microservices are the best option, and well worth the immediate challenge.


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DevOps / Microservices / Networking / Contributed

DevNetOps: How Microservices Could Bring DevOps Speed to Networking Management

13 Oct 2017 12:00pm, by James Kelly

Cloud Native / Data / Development / Microservices / Monitoring / Open Source / Sponsored / Contributed

OpenTracing: An Open Standard for Distributed Tracing

10 Oct 2017 6:00am, by Gianluca Arbezzano

CI/CD / Cloud Native / Cloud Services / Containers / Development / Microservices / Serverless

A Closer Look at Microsoft’s Azure Event Grid

6 Oct 2017 2:00am, by Janakiram MSV

Cloud Native / Microservices / Contributed

Microservices: Terribly Named, Ambiguously Defined

5 Oct 2017 7:00am, by Roger Jin

Development / Microservices

Spring Framework 5 Adjusts to Microservices with a New Reactive Programming Model

4 Oct 2017 6:00am, by Susan Hall

CI/CD / DevOps / Microservices

Airbnb’s 10 Takeaways from Moving to Microservices

3 Oct 2017 6:00am, by TC Currie

Containers / Kubernetes / Microservices / Sponsored

A Universal Resource Broker to Deploy Mesos Frameworks on Kubernetes

28 Sep 2017 12:55pm, by Alex Williams and Scott M. Fulton III

CI/CD / Containers / DevOps / Kubernetes / Microservices / Sponsored / Contributed

The Case for Running Monolithic Applications in Docker Containers

27 Sep 2017 7:00am, by Laura Frank

Cloud Native / Development / DevOps / Microservices / Service Mesh / Sponsored

Lyft’s Envoy and the Emerging Prospects of Service Mesh Architecture

26 Sep 2017 3:00pm, by Scott M. Fulton III

Containers / Development / Kubernetes / Microservices

Why Containers Are Everywhere in Microsoft Azure

25 Sep 2017 4:00pm, by Scott M. Fulton III

Containers / Microservices / Contributed

The 80/20 Rule Points to Real Benefits from Containers in Production

25 Sep 2017 6:00am, by Mark Thiele

API Management / Cloud Native / Development / Microservices / Service Mesh

The Role of API Gateways in Microservice Architectures

21 Sep 2017 12:54pm, by Joab Jackson

Containers / Kubernetes / Microservices / Monitoring

Netsil Visualizes the Performance of Microservices

21 Sep 2017 6:00am, by Susan Hall

Cloud Native / Microservices

CNCF Adds Oracle, Onboards the Envoy and Jaeger Projects

13 Sep 2017 9:00am, by Joab Jackson

Containers / Development / Kubernetes / Microservices / Monitoring / Service Mesh

StackPointCloud Augments Kubernetes with the Istio Service Mesh

13 Sep 2017 6:00am, by TC Currie

DevOps / Microservices / Monitoring

New Relic’s FutureStack 2017 Prepares Monitoring for DevOps Speeds

12 Sep 2017 5:00am, by TC Currie

CI/CD / Data / Microservices

From Monolith to Microservices: One Company’s Plan

12 Sep 2017 2:00am, by Jennifer Riggins

Cloud Native / Culture / Development / Edge / IoT / Microservices / Serverless

Event-Driven Architecture Is the Wave of the Future

11 Sep 2017 9:00am, by TC Currie

CI/CD / Cloud Native / Culture / Microservices

Microservices: The Good, the Bad and the Hype

11 Sep 2017 2:00am, by Jennifer Riggins

Development / Microservices

Netlify Grows from SSG to CMS — and Launches a Microservices Gateway

7 Sep 2017 2:00am, by Michelle Gienow

Cloud Services / Containers / Development / Kubernetes / Microservices / Monitoring / Service Mesh

Nginx Pairs with Istio to Simplify the Service Mesh

6 Sep 2017 9:30am, by Alex Handy

CI/CD / Cloud Native / Containers / DevOps / Kubernetes / Microservices

Considerations for CIOs and IT Implementers to Assess Kubernetes

5 Sep 2017 3:00am, by Craig Martin, Janakiram MSV and Krishnan Subramanian

DevOps / Microservices / Sponsored / Contributed

Site Reliability Engineering Is a Kind of Magic

30 Aug 2017 6:00am, by Peter Waterhouse

Containers / Kubernetes / Microservices / Serverless

Explore Multicloud Deployments with Microsoft’s ACI Connector for Kubernetes

30 Aug 2017 2:00am, by Janakiram MSV

API Management / Cloud Native / Containers / Microservices / Contributed

Distributed Systems Are Hard

25 Aug 2017 6:00am, by Anne Currie

Cloud Services / Containers / Data / Microservices

Tutorial: Building and Deploying a Microservices Application with Azure Container Instances

25 Aug 2017 2:00am, by Janakiram MSV

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