What are microservices?

Microservices - also known as the microservice architecture - is an architectural style that structures an application as a collection of two or more services that are:

• Independently deployable
• Loosely coupled

Services are typically organized around business capabilities. Each service is often owned by a single, small team.

Microservices enable fast flow

For a business to thrive in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world, IT must deliver that software rapidly, frequently and reliably.

To do that for large complex applications you need the success triangle.

Design microservices using Assemblage

The key challenge when using microservices is designing a good service architecture.

If you get it wrong you risk creating a distributed monolith, which will slow down software delivery.

Assemblage is an architecture definition process for grouping subdomains/bounded contexts into services.

Dark energy and dark matter shape the architecture

Assemblage uses the dark energy and dark matter forces to shape the service architecture.

Dark energy forces encourage decomposition into smaller services. Dark matter forces resist decomposition.

The balance between these forces shapes the service architecture.

The pattern language is your guide

The microservices pattern language is your guide when designing an architecture: service collaboration, testing, deployment, common crosscutting concerns and more. It’s a collection of patterns that help you make decisions when designing and evolving an architecture.

Incrementally refactor a monolith to microservices

The monolithic architecture is not an anti-pattern. It’s a good choice for small teams and small projects.

But if you outgrow your monolithic architecture, you need to refactor it to services using the Strangler Fig pattern.