Microservice architecture design Fundamentals

4 min readNov 1, 2022

Microservices is a software architecture style that shifts the way we build applications today. Microservices has evolved over the years to become one of the most popular architectural patterns for developing scalable and maintainable applications. This article will help you understand what microservice architecture is, how it can benefit your business, and how to get started with microservice implementation.

Microservice architecture design fundamentals

Microservice architecture is a software architecture style in which a complex system is composed of many services. Microservices are small, autonomous and single purpose. A service should do one thing and do it well. They are developed independently, by different teams without any dependencies on other services or teams.

Each service has its own database, state and code base which makes it easier to manage the system as a whole compared to monoliths (one code base with multiple responsibilities).

Microservices vs. Monolith

Microservices and monoliths are two different types of software architecture.

Microservices is an approach to developing software applications as suites of small, independent services — each running in its own process and communicating with lightweight mechanisms such as HTTP.

Microservice architectures allow companies to build multiple products or platforms more quickly by independently releasing new features. Teams can focus on their core competencies without being held back by other teams’ dependencies or legacy code.

Monoliths, on the other hand, are large, complex applications that can be difficult to manage and maintain over time because they contain all the business logic needed for the entire system in one place — making it difficult to make changes safely or quickly.

They often require additional tools or processes like continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines that help support rapid releases at scale; this adds both complexity and cost overhead compared with microservices architectures that don’t require these additional tools because they’re composed of many small functions instead of one large code base.

Characteristics of Microservice architecture

Microservices are a software design pattern and an architectural style. They’re small, independent services that work together to achieve a larger goal. The term microservice is often used interchangeably with the terms API or component; however, these definitions aren’t exactly the same.

A microservice is not just a single API endpoint — it’s an entire service that can include multiple endpoints and internal components that communicate via protocols such as HTTP/REST or messaging (for example: AMQP). In other words, it’s a self-contained unit of functionality with its own business logic and data store.

Microservices communicate with each other over the network using various protocols like REST APIs, messaging queues (such as RabbitMQ), or sockets in order to share data between each other in real time at high volume without losing consistency across different environments (production vs test vs development).

Core Benefits of Microservices

The primary benefit to using microservices is the ability to deploy and manage services individually. This means you can create and deploy a new service without having to worry about updating other parts of your system, like infrastructure or other services. Depending on your needs, you can also scale individual modules as needed without affecting others.

Another core benefit of microservices is that they allow you to use different technologies and languages for each module. For example, if one part of your system requires a lot of processing power but another does not, it makes sense to utilize two separate languages: one for each module that requires more processing power (such as C++ or Java).

The benefits of this concept are easier management of code, the ability to create and deploy services separately, and the ability to scale only individual modules as needed.

The major benefit of this design pattern is that it makes it easy for developers to manage their code base. They can easily track changes in one microservice by comparing it with the rest of the system’s components. This also helps with continuous integration since each module can be built separately before being integrated into a final product.

The second advantage is that you can create and deploy services separately. For example, if you want a new feature on your website, there will be no need to redeploy all other parts of your system because they don’t depend on each other anymore! And if something goes wrong with one part but not another (problem in database), then only this particular part needs fixing instead of everything else as well!

Conclusion

Microservice architecture is a design pattern for software. It’s also known as microservice architecture (MSA). Microservices are modular units of code that run independently of each other. These modules are usually small and focused on one task. They can be used in different ways depending on the needs of an application.

Microservices allow developers to customize their applications at runtime using only the pieces they need while maintaining modularity throughout the project lifecycle.