MICROSERVICE VS MONOLITHIC ARCHITECTURE
Sonal Khare
JAVA | MicroServices | Spring boot | Kafka | JPA | Hibernate | NoSQL | Cloud | Docker | Kubernetes | Redis | Azure
The microservice software architecture allows a system to be divided into a number of smaller, individual and independent services. Each service is flexible, robust, composable and complete. They run as autonomous processes and communicate with one another through APIs. Each microservice can be implemented in a different programming language on a different platform. Almost any infrastructure can run in a container that holds services encapsulated for operation. Since these containers can be operated in parallel, the existing infrastructure is easier to maintain.
The monolithic architecture means the code’s components are designed to work together, sharing the same memory space. The software built using a monolith approach is self-contained. Its components are interconnected and interdependent. If developers want to make any changes or updates to a monolith system, they need to build and deploy the entire stack at once. It’s the same thing with scalability the entire system, not just the modules in it, is scaled together. With the monolithic architecture, it can be difficult to adopt a new technology stack, and in case you want to use a new platform or framework, you will have to rewrite the entire solution.
BENEFITS OF MICROSERVICE ARCHITECTURE
1. Easier to Build and Maintain Apps
The key principle of microservices is simplicity. Applications become easier to build and maintain when they’re split into a set of smaller ones. Managing the code also becomes less painful because each microservice is, in fact, a separate chunk of code. Services can be implemented using different programming languages, databases and software environments. This allows each service to be deployed, rebuilt, re-deployed and managed independently.
For example, if a microservice allocates too much memory or puts a heavy load on the processor, it will only affect this service. Any problem with a microservice will not influence the entire system and the failure of individual microservices can be compensated relatively quickly. It also allows putting each microservice into production one by one easily
2. Organized Around Business Capabilities
Microservices allow building products instead of projects. Microservice architectures invite teams to focus on building business functionality instead of writing glue code. In other words, development teams are organized around business capabilities and not technologies. This means that services are adaptable for use in multiple contexts. The same service can be reused in more than one business process or over different business channels depending on the need. Each team member is responsible for a particular service which results in building a smart, cross-functional team.
3. Improved Productivity and Speed
Microservices architecture tackles the problem of productivity and speed by decomposing applications into manageable services that are faster to develop. Different teams can be working on different components simultaneously without having to wait for one team to finish a chunk of work before starting theirs. This type of architecture is also very handy for speeding up quality assurance since each microservice can be tested individually and you can test the components that have already been developed while the programmers are working on the other ones.
4. Flexibility in Using Technologies and Scalability
Each microservice can be written using different technology. This simplifies the selection of the most appropriate tech stack for the specific needs of your service. The microservice architecture allows decoupled services written in different programming languages. We can add new components to the system painlessly or scale services separately from one another.
5. Autonomous, Cross-functional Teams
Microservices are a blessing for distributed teams. Carrying out the development of a massive monolith system can be complicated and messy if you’re working with divisions around the globe or extended teams. Microservices grant the developers more independence to work autonomously and make technical decisions quickly in smaller groups. So, if the solution you’re developing is expected to be large, be sure to consider the microservice architecture.