Microservice architecture is an alternative to a monolith, which involves a single deployment of the entire application. While a monolithic architecture is easier to implement, it will create scalability issues later on, slow down the development of new features, and a bug in a module can break the entire application. In the material, we will analyze the advantages and disadvantages of microservice architecture and microservice development, and also see which programming languages are more suitable for microservices.
The main principle of the architecture is to create an application in which the components of its business logic are divided into small services that can be deployed and used independently of each other. This architecture allows teams to streamline the release process.
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How Microservice Architecture Works
Let’s consider microservice architecture using the example of software development for e-commerce. We can highlight certain components: a user authentication system, a shopping cart with selected goods, and a billing system for paying for them.
When developing such a system using a microservice development, a separate microservice will be responsible for each area. And for each microservice, for example, the development of a basket, a separate developer, or a team, if the company is large enough. The basket will have release schedules and deployment plans. It will be an independent unit of software, which, if desired, can be completely rewritten without affecting other microservices. Also, when developing a basket, it will be possible to use a technology stack that is different from the stack of other microservices of the platform.
Benefits of Microservices
1. Modularity: Specific operations are handled by different components of the application;
2. Reliability: If one of the microservices fails, the work of only those functions for which it is responsible is disrupted. This will not damage the application completely;
3. Changeability: It is possible to modify a microservice independently of other services in the system;
4. Scalability: You can add or remove a module at any time. If the microservice reaches its load limit, it will be possible to deploy new instances of the service in a neighboring cluster;
5. Testability: New features can be tested immediately in production. It is enough to implement them for some segments of users to check how they will work;
6. Teams work independently: Teams that work with microservices can work without being tied to other teams. This allows faster implementation and delivery of new features;
7. More attention to quality: Each microservice is responsible for specific business tasks. Teams working on microservices strive to give the best result, as they understand that at this stage it depends only on them.
Related: Aspects Concerning Data Modernization Strategy
Disadvantages of Microservices
1. Rising infrastructure costs: With each microservice, the costs also increase: for a test suite, deployment instructions, hosting infrastructure, monitoring tools, etc.
2. An additional level of communication: The teams working on the microservices architecture require additional channels of communication in order to successfully coordinate updates and interfaces. Additional organizational expenses result from this.
3. The development environment is getting more complex: The fact that the project is divided into many microservices creates another problem: the difficulty of reproducing a distributed architecture while setting up local development.
What Programming Language is Suitable?
Although a microservice architecture allows different technologies to be used in each microservice, a standardized stack for the entire application is more efficient. The following programming languages are suitable for microservice architecture: Java, Node.js, Python, Go, C#.
Eleggible’s Final Words
Microservice architecture has many advantages, although there are also disadvantages. Despite the scalability, the convenience of changing individual services, and the lack of risk of breaking the application completely, sometimes it is better to use a monolith.
Especially if you are not familiar with microservices, moving to a microservice architecture can only add to the problem. If your application is large enough and requires scalability, monolithic solutions will definitely not suit you. Therefore, above you can choose the best framework for your tasks.
