Microservices Architecture: Benefits and Challenges for business

The microservices are great for dividing big projects into several modules and they interact via APIs or App Programming Interfaces. During a couple of recent years, this type of modular style has become increasingly popular. The principle of this type of architecture is the division of the large project into independent and smaller ones which is crucial for the agile and dynamic qualities in the management for dealing with discrete tasks.

If generally speaking then microservices are just a perfect solution for designing complex apps. The traditional monolithic approach became not as popular and then Service Oriented Architecture came and after that microservices.

Here in the article, we will dive deeper in the benefits and challenges of microservices for businesses, but prior to checking the major pluses you can review a dedicated server hosting plan – that can be really beneficial for your new projects in terms of performance improvement.

What do the microservices start from?

The microservice architecture was based on the traditional monolithic architecture. For a broader picture and better understanding, let’s try to understand how the standard app builds. The standard application consists of the user interface, app layer, integration layer, and finally the database layer.

For the full application to run, all these layers should be in the WAR or EAR package and deployed on the app server. Once everything is packed in the WAR/EAR the app becomes monolithic even though there are several components all of them are united in one package. The major benefits of the traditional approach are in the simplicity of the testing, development, deployment, and scalability. However, some of the flaws have influenced the next developmental process, and here are some of the major minuses of monolithic architecture:

• With the growth of an app, the volumes of code also increases and it can significantly overload the development environment.
• The changes in the tech stack can become a huge challenge due to the fixed pack of an app. It is extremely challenging to predict how the app's functionality can be changed and what issues can appear.
• Once there is one small issue within the app, it can cause lots of harm to the entire app’s functionality.
• The scalability of such an application is also a difficult process because you should deploy the same packages in an additional server. This process is called a horizontal scaling.

The basics of the microservices

The microservices architecture is based on the standard principles, but it has one major difference. The main thing that distinguishes this type of architecture is that its elements are fully autonomous services. This means that every single element within one huge system can be managed, deployed, and developed independently while not influencing other segments and parts of an application. The approach in traditional monolithic architecture is totally the opposite.

The services function asynchronously and collaboratively and that brings a huge diversity of bonuses among which we can stand out with better fault tolerance, improved scalability, quicker cycles of development, and of course it also drastically influences the security factor.

The communication within the microservices is done via APIs. The integration can be done easily because of the usage of the messaging systems or HTTP (or other lightweight protocols).

For a better understanding of the whole process of functioning, let’s take the booking platform as an example. The microservices in this specific case scenario can be used for checking the availability, retrieving property info, finishing the booking process, and price calculation. Every of the mentioned parts works independently and can quickly scale if there is a necessity. Moreover, in case there are some issues with finishing the booking, other processes won’t be influenced.

The benefits of microservice architecture

Innovations and agility

The easiness of the scalability and quickness of the development is the peculiarity of the microservices. The implementation of the new features can be done so much quicker due to the independent deployment and also it is way easier to make the improvements without influencing the whole application.

You can roll back the updates and update the application in the easiest possible way without influencing the functionality of the entire application. With monolithic apps, it can become a huge challenge, because one tiny bug can block the release.

Focus oriented teams

Microservices are oriented on small teams that are dealing with a single feature (or a couple of similar ones) in order to get the best possible result. The agility of focused tiny teams is way higher than with large groups of employees. The communication in the bigger teams is way slower and that directly can influence the time of release.

Simplicity of deployment

The principle of microservice is in the continuous delivery so it is so easy to roll back a new feature if it doesn’t function as expected. The possibility of experimenting makes it way simpler to realize new features and just update code in case there is a necessity.

Isolation of data

The databases are also isolated from one another according to the existing design of the microservices. That is why, it is easier to make some changes in the database without influencing another part of the project.

Challenges connected with microservices

Complexity

Because of the diversity of services, there are way more moving parts. That’s why the management as well as deployment of hundreds of parts can be challenging.

Latency and issues with the network

In case, the chain of services is called, the latency issues can be noticeable. To avoid API calls, it is highly recommended to use asynchronous communication.

Management of data

The integrity of the data between the services is not an easy task, because every service has its own independent database.

Conclusion

Microservice architecture is a perfect approach for building and designing software due to its flexibility, agility, scalability, simplicity of deployment, and more. However, at the same time, you should not forget about some challenges to the business that use this type of architecture. So, outwait all the pluses and minuses and make an informative decision for your case scenario.