What are Microservices?
Everyone's talking about Microservices, but what exactly are they? Are they just a set of functions hosted over a network or something more?
Microservices in simple terms are like the regular functions from our programming language but just a more extensive set of responsibilities and served via a network.
So, you may have a microservice that handles everything related to Payments, a service that handles Notifications, and a service that deals with analytics. We see each service having focussed responsibility.
Microservices are no silver bullet, and they would not magically solve all the problems you have. It has its own fair share of drawbacks.
Monolith
Almost all products start monolith where every feature is put into a single codebase which is deployed as one artifact across all the servers. For example, the code handling payments, notifications, and analytics are all part of the same codebase deployed within the same binary.
Monoliths are always simple to build, develop, test, and scale. Given their simplicity, they are the go-to option for anyone starting up. With a lean team working on monolith would ensure very quick feature delivery.
Disadvantages of Monolith
monolith is tightly coupled
the deployment artifact - binary/JAR is bulky
the tech stack is homogeneous
bug in one module affects other modules
scaling one module requires scaling everything
large monolithic codebase is intimidating and it slows down delivery
Monolith to Microservices
Migrating from monolith to microservices is a slow process and to start you would club a related set of functions and fork out a service out of it. The process would be repeated for other sets of functions, eventually breaking the entire monolith.
Characteristics of Microservices
microservices are autonomous
microservices are focused and specialized
microservices are built around a business usecase/need
Advantages of Microservices
agility: small independent teams can move much faster
scaling: you can precisely scale one service as per the load
freedom: you can pick the best-suited tech stack for the service
given the scope is focused, a microservice is simple to understand
microservices can be reused across the platform
if a service goes down, it is easy to isolate it using a circuit breaker
Anti-patterns
do not start with microservices; start with a monolith
do not make services too small; they should a larger responsibility
don't reinvent the wheel, use existing tooling as much as possible
Here's the video of my explaining this in-depth 👇 do check it out
Everyone is doing Microservices, but what are they after all? From a distance, it looks like a function put over the network. Is it really just that? There are so many things to explore about microservices, so let me introduce you to this world today.
In this video, we talk about what are microservices, understand how it starts with a simple monolith and eventually evolve into microservices, look at their key characteristics, understand their advantages, and conclude with some anti-patterns that we all should keep in mind to ensure we do not do it wrong.
Outline:
00:00 Agenda
02:38 Idea of a Microservice
09:26 Monolith Architecture
16:19 Monolith to Microservice
18:49 Characteristics of a Microservice
21:09 Advantages of Microservices
24:06 Anti-patterns in Microservices
You can also
Subscribe to the YT Channel Asli Engineering
Listen to this on the go on Spotify
Thank you so much for reading 🖖 If you found this helpful, do spread the word about it on social media; it would mean the world to me.
You can also follow me on your favourite social media LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Yours truly,
Arpit
arpitbhayani.me
Until next time, stay awesome :)