The popularity of using microservices has not subsided so far. It is enough to look, for example, at Netflix, which is actively promoting this technology to the masses, but such giants as Amazon, in turn, have been regularly publishing books on microservice architecture in leading publishing houses since 2015 and even hold several regular conferences, entirely dedicated to microservices.
But why is the topic of microservices so popular, and what are its fundamental benefits and differences from the usual, “monolithic” way of development? The Peiko company knows the answer: https://peiko.space/service/software-outsourcing-company
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Let’s remember history
The opposite of microservices is a monolithic approach to development. The concept of a “monolith” is that the various components of an application are combined into one program on one platform.
The main problem with this approach was discovered by Peiko, who came up with innovative ideas, aggressive strategies, and the decision to move quickly to a different way of development that would lead to high growth of their applications.
Companies like this have noticed that a monolithic approach is not up to the task of developing fast or web-scale software, and often encountering the problem of separation of responsibility between modules only led to a desire to create a more relevant architecture: moving from an application where everything works as a whole – to an application that can be divided into several blocks and define interaction protocols (rules) between them.
Thus, the main reason for the emergence of microservices was the urgent need to develop a product by several teams and split the product into several independent parts. Moreover, the effectiveness of this approach should have led to the fact that each team could develop its part independently of the others with thoroughly different approaches or even in different programming languages.
So, what is a microservice architecture, in simple words?
Microservice architecture is one of the ways to develop software applications by creating separate modules independent of each other. Each of them is responsible for a specific task, which can be changed, supplemented, and expanded.
In simple words, an application consists of numerous services that interact with each other through messaging.
You can also say that microservice architecture is a division into modules (services) in accordance with business needs. Such services consist of a complete set of technologies required for a specific business request: user interface, storage, and external communications. Separate modules can be written in different languages, and use different libraries.
Why is microservice development in demand?
When talking about the “usual” project model that most software companies use, they usually mean the following situation: after the development is completed, the product is transferred to the support group and the project team is disbanded.
Companies that develop microservices, in turn, work a little differently: after the development is completed, the same development team takes care of the product. The main advantage here is that the same team is responsible for the application of the software product, and more contact with users. But this is far from its only advantage.
Unlike monolithic applications, microservice architecture has a number of advantages:
- Writing and maintaining small services is much easier than writing and maintaining a large project. Each element of the system carries one function, and to introduce changes to this element, it is not necessary to rebuild the entire algorithm.
- The distribution of work on the creation of individual modules can be distributed among different teams.
- The existence of a choice for each service of the language and library suitable for a particular task.
- The easiest and simplest possibility of updating with a microservice architecture – is a gradual process that will not slow down the entire system.
- Smooth and uninterrupted operation: services that are not needed or that consumers stop using over time can simply be turned off, and this will not affect the operation of the system as a whole. Even if one of the modules fails, the rest continue to work
- Prioritization: Services can be developed and implemented incrementally, depending on the priority needs of the business units.
- Multichannel: microservices can run on any device, as well as on-premise and cloud environments.
