What Are Microservices?
Microservices are a software development approach where a large, complex application is broken down into a collection of small, independently deployable services. Each service is responsible for a specific business capability and communicates with other services through APIs. This approach aims to improve scalability, maintainability, and flexibility of large and complex applications by breaking them down into smaller, manageable units.
A Little History
The term “microservices” was coined by Martin Fowler and James Lewis in a blog post they wrote in 2014. However, the concept of building applications as a collection of small, independently deployable services has been around for much longer than that. The microservices architectural style is closely related to service-oriented architecture (SOA), which has been around since the 2000s so the concept has been around for a while.
Up until recently, there were a few technology limitations what made implementing the concept of microservices very difficult. Prior to the advent of cloud computing, virtualization, and containerization, it was difficult to deploy and manage a large number of small, independently deployable services. These technologies have made it much easier to deploy and manage microservices.
The Tools of Microservices
There are several tools commonly used to implement microservices:
- Containerization: a method of packaging an application and its dependencies into a single, self-contained unit called a container.
- API Management: Tools are used to manage and secure the communication between microservices.
- Automation and orchestration: Tools that are used to automate the deployment and scaling of microservices.
- Service Discovery: A key component of a microservices architecture, it allows the microservices to locate and communicate with each other
- Service Mesh: Provide advanced networking features such as traffic management, service-to-service authentication, and observability.
- Monitoring and logging: It is important to monitor the health and performance of microservices, and log the data for debugging and troubleshooting purposes.
Use Case
How do you know if Microservices would be a good fit for your company’s specific challenges? Here are a few of the factors involved, however, keep in mind that microservices are not a one-size-fits-all solution.
- Scale: Microservices are well-suited for large and complex applications that need to scale horizontally. If your company’s application is expected to handle a large number of users or transactions, microservices may be a good fit.
- Team size: Microservices allow for smaller, independent teams to work on different parts of the application. If your company has a large development team, microservices can help to break down the work into smaller, manageable units.
- Flexibility: Microservices allow for independent deployment and scaling of different parts of the application. If your company’s application requires frequent updates or changes, microservices can make it easier to update and deploy different parts of the application independently.
- Complexity: Microservices can help to reduce the complexity of large and complex applications by breaking them down into smaller, independent units. If your company’s application is complex and difficult to maintain, microservices may be a good fit.
- Cloud readiness: Microservices are well-suited for cloud-native applications, running on cloud platforms like AWS, GCP, and Azure allows for easy scaling and management of the services.
- Continuous delivery: Microservices enable smaller, independent teams to work on different parts of the application, which can lead to faster development and deployment cycles. If your company is looking to implement continuous delivery, microservices may be a good fit.
Companies Using Microservices
There are many companies that rely heavily on microservices and have implemented it in their technology stack. Some of the companies that have been known to use microservices and have spoken publicly about their adoption include:
- Netflix: Netflix is considered one of the pioneers of microservices. They have a large number of microservices, which are deployed on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and use technologies such as Java, Spring Boot, and the Netflix OSS (Open Source Software) suite of tools.
- Uber: Uber has a large number of microservices that handle various aspects of their business such as ride matching, driver management, and payment processing. They use technologies such as Java, Python, and Node.js, and use Kubernetes for container orchestration.
- Spotify: Spotify has a large number of microservices that handle different aspects of their music streaming service. They use technologies such as Java and Scala, and also use Kubernetes for container orchestration.