Microservices Development-Monolithic and Microservices Architectures

Microservices are an organizational and architectural approach to software development wherein an application program is made up of small independent services. These services communicate with each other over well-defined Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), which are owned by self-contained, small teams. The microservices architecture speeds up development faster, enables innovation, makes scaling up easier, and reduces the time needed to bring new features to the market.

Microservices are becoming more popular and as recently as 2021, approximately 85 percent of respondents in a survey working in large organizations (with more than 5,000 employees) stated that they were currently using microservices. 

Monolithic vs. Microservices Architectures

In the case of traditional monolithic architecture, the application software runs as one serving as the processes are all tightly coupled. This means that the entire architecture needs to be scaled in order to cater to an increase in demand for the process of the application software. Furthermore, adding or improving the features of a monolithic application becomes complex with the growth of the code base. This makes the implementation of new ideas a challenging task. Besides, the application availability in the case of a monolith gets seriously impacted due to the failure of a single process because the processes are all dependent on each other and are tightly coupled.

In the case of the microservices architecture, applications are created as independent components. These components run each process as a service. The services communicate with each other via interfaces with the help of lightweight APIs. Each service performs only one function. Furthermore, services are created for business capabilities. As the services run independently, each one can be updated, deployed, or scaled to cater to the increase in demand for specific functions of applications. As such, the benefits offered by the microservices architecture are:

• Agility
• Flexibility in Scaling
• Easier and Faster Deployment
• Technological Freedom
• Reusable Code
• Resilience

Having said that, the 5 core components of microservices are:

Services: The heart of microservices and the location of business logic.

APIs: They enable communication between services.

Databases: Storehouses of application data

Schedulers: Control the operation and interaction of services.

Monitoring: Ensures proper running of microservices and collection of data for analysis.

Microservices and Programming

Microservices are being increasingly used in the field of software development to create larger and more complex applications as a collection of smaller services so that they can be better managed. The microservices work together cohesively to ensure more extensive and application-wide functionality.

Read our blog “How to hire microservices developers from other countries”. 

These services run their own processes and communicate with each other and clients by way of lightweight protocols through messaging or HTTP. Microservices can be considered a type of Service-oriented Architecture (SoA) wherein software applications are created as a collection of smaller services rather than whole applications.

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Independent services can be created using any programming language and even various platforms. Furthermore, while large teams are needed to work on monolithic projects, microservices-based application development can be implemented with the help of smaller and more agile teams employing tools and frameworks that they are adept at using. Besides, each program can be separately versioned, implemented, and scaled.

Microservices communication is another key factor in ensuring the success of a microservices-based architecture. Unlike monolithic applications, where components communicate internally within the same process, microservices rely on external communication mechanisms to interact with one another. This can be achieved using synchronous communication, such as REST APIs or gRPC, or asynchronous communication through message brokers like RabbitMQ or Kafka.

To enhance the resilience of these communications, implementing a circuit breaker in microservices architecture pattern is essential. The circuit breaker acts as a safeguard, preventing calls to a failing service from overwhelming the system. When a service becomes unresponsive or slow, the circuit breaker trips, allowing the system to short-circuit the request and avoid cascading failures. This approach not only improves fault tolerance but also enhances overall system performance by allowing services to recover and stabilize without constant strain from failed requests. By integrating the circuit breaker pattern into microservices communication, organizations can achieve a more reliable and robust architecture, ensuring seamless interactions among services even in the face of failures.

Examples of Microservices

When it comes to software application development, the game-changers are the introduction of cloud computing and the acceptance of cloud architecture. This led to the emergence of the microservices architecture and the streamlining of the development process with increased focus and productivity. Having said that, here are a couple of real-world examples of microservices-based applications:

Walmart

In 2012, Walmart migrated to the microservices architecture after the company faced many system issues during seasonal customer activity peaks. Walmart’s system failed to handle the workload and this led to a decrease in the company’s revenues.

Download and read our eBook, “Modern Commerce and Microservices”. 

The world's largest retail chain went on to overhaul its system by moving the core business tasks to the microservices architecture. This enabled the company to redistribute the system’s workload and streamline the workflow.

The benefits of transitioning to Microservices included:

• 20 to 50 percent reduction in hardware costs
• 40 percent drop in computing power usage
• No system downtime during seasonal customer activity peaks
• Full use of the mobile app, which helped add another stream of conversions and order stream

Spotify

Spotify built an efficient system using microservices to overcome the challenges posed by complex monolithic systems. Currently, Spotify has 400 million active users in a month. As these users are not interested in worrying about challenges related to providing services to them, Spotify has to make sure that their customers have a seamless experience.

Here’s how Spotify handled the issues:

The company broke down its existing system into self-contained, single-purpose microservices with the help of autonomous development teams.

• Each microservice was designed to achieve a specific goal
• Their isolated nature ensured that the services were less dependent on each other
• This contributed to enhancing the consistency of customer service and enabled the company to continuously refine services without shutting the whole system down
• Additionally, it helped them ensure that the emergence of an issue within any specific service did not affect other services

REST APIs and Microservices

When discussing REST APIs, the topic of microservices architecture often comes up. This is because these two terms go hand in hand. More importantly, the difference between the two is discussed. They both refer to different things, and the best way to understand the difference between the two is by looking at them from their functional perspective:

While microservices represent independent software services/functions (basic building blocks) that form the larger software application, APIs represent rules, protocols, controls, and governance that help combine one or more services and deliver a single end-user response. APIs act as the glue between different systems, microservices, and system users.

Read our blog  "Understanding Problems with the Monolithic Architecture style"

REST, which expands to Representational State Transfer, presents a framework for the development of APIs. Furthermore, APIs that comply with REST design principles are referred to as REST APIs. These are the most commonly used types of APIs for cross-platform integrations. They are also used in microservices-based applications.

Do you want to deploy, manage, and scale up your mobile/on-premise/cloud microservices applications? Call us today 

How SayOne can help

At SayOne, our integrated teams of developers service our clients with microservices that are fully aligned to the future of the business or organization. The microservices we design and implement are formulated around the propositions of Agile and DevOps methodologies. Our system model focuses on individual components that are resilient, fortified, and highly reliable.

We design microservices for our clients in a manner that assures future success in terms of scalability and adaptation to the latest technologies. They are also constructed to accept fresh components easily and smoothly, allowing for effective function upgrades in a cost-effective manner. 

Our microservices are constructed with reusable components that offer increased flexibility and offer superior productivity for the organization/business. We work with start-ups, SMBs, and enterprises and help them to visualize the entire microservices journey and also allow for the effective coexistence of legacy systems of the organization.