Cloud computing and cloud architecture for software applications have been game-changers for many industries. Around the same time, microservices have emerged as an effective solution, simplifying development processes and allowing for greater focus and productivity.
If you’ve heard about microservices before but struggle with understanding what the term actually means for your business – worry not, you’re not alone! The term is often overused and misunderstood, leading to confusion among many business leaders and decision-makers.
In this article, we’ll take a look at one of the trendiest words in the IT jargon, and examine why using microservices works wonders for enterprises.
You'll find all about:
The definition of microservice architecture and its key principles;
Microservice examples of design patterns;
The business benefits of microservices for enterprises;
Enterprise microservices examples of successful deployments .
The definition of microservice architectures
Microservices is an architectural style where a software application is built as a collection of small, independent services that work together. Each service runs its own process, communicates through a lightweight protocol (usually HTTP), and is responsible for a specific business function. This approach makes it easier to develop, deploy, and scale applications, as each microservice can be updated and managed independently.
In a nutshell, microservice architecture is a loose framework of orchestrating services that perform just one action. Each service in a microservice architecture is dedicated to specific company objectives, adhering to the single responsibility principle.
Microservices:
Structure an application as a collection of loosely coupled services communicating via APIs;
Are highly maintainable and testable
Are independently deployable;
Tend to be organized around business capabilities.
How microservices are used in ecommerce
In an ecommerce architectural stack, microservices can be used to separate different functionalities into individual services, such as user authentication, product catalog, shopping cart, payment processing, and order management. For instance, the product catalog microservice handles all tasks related to listing and updating products, while the payment processing microservice manages transactions.
This separation allows each microservice to be developed, deployed, and scaled independently, improving flexibility and resilience. If the payment service needs an update or experiences an issue, it can be addressed without affecting the entire system, ensuring a smoother and more reliable shopping experience for customers.
Before we jump onto more specific real-life applications of microservice-based architectures, let's cover the tech aspects of this approach.
Key principles of microservice architecture
While microservices come in many forms, there are some core principles and characteristics:
Loosely coupled services: Each service can be developed, deployed, and scaled independently. This independence reduces the complexity of the system and allows for more agile and flexible development processes.
Communication through APIs: Services communicate through well-defined APIs, enabling different technologies and languages to be used for multiple services. This allows teams to choose the best tools for each job.
High maintainability and testability: Each independent service is small and is focused on a single responsibility, making it easier to maintain and test. Bugs can be isolated and fixed without affecting other parts of the system.
Independent deployment: Services can be deployed independently, which means updates and new features can be rolled out without requiring a full system reboot. From a software development perspective, this reduces downtime and increases the speed of innovation.
Aligned with business capabilities: Services are organized around business functions. This alignment ensures that development teams can work closely with business stakeholders, enhancing the relevance and impact of the software.
The single-responsibility principle is the core of microservices: think of the collection of modules as like a LEGO construction kit where you dedicate each service to specific company objectives.
Various services communicate with each other through API . Thanks to the services’ relative independence from one another, you gain more freedom in developing and maintaining your product.
An architecture designed for microservices is the best option in situations where your system's primary requirement is agility and scalability, as opposed to monolithic structures .
Microservices architecture patterns
Another essential element of the microservice architecture pattern is that it is a distributed system, which means that all components are completely decoupled and accessed through a remote access protocol (e.g., RMI, REST, JMS, AMQP, SOAP). This architecture's distributed nature is one of its major strengths.
So, how is a microservice architecture designed? Here, we'll examine some examples of microservice architecture patterns and take a closer look at the organizational principles. .
Principles for designing architectures for microservices
A good microservices architecture should be designed according to the following rules:
1. Single responsibility: The most important principle for microservices; each one has a single focus and delivers a single service.
2. Focused on business capabilities: Each microservice may utilize a different technology based on business needs.
3. Designed for failure: if one microservice encounters an error it does not impact any others. Individual services are designed to recover quickly, ensuring the overall system remains functional.
Business benefits of microservices architecture
Now that we’ve covered the technical aspects of microservices’ architecture, it’s time to answer the real question: what do they bring on the table for businesses?
There's a reason so many enterprises are choosing to let go of monolithic approaches in favor of microservices, and it's not just because it's a trendy term in tech.
The most important benefits you can expect from a system compiled from microservices include:
Seamless UX performance: The most pressing modern business advantage of utilizing a good microservice architecture from a performance standpoint is increased UX metrics. Each application is smaller and built with a strong focus on modern UX performance and speed.
Improved SEO: Faster load times improve SEO rankings, increasing organic traffic. Google considers page speed a ranking factor, and microservices can help optimize performance.
Better conversion rates: A strong emphasis on mobile UX drastically improves conversion rates. Mobile users want fast, responsive experiences, and microservices can deliver on these expectations.
Budget optimization: Development budgets are smaller, allowing for larger customer acquisition budgets. Microservices make the use of your budget more efficient with a positive impact on the overall development costs.
Increased revenue: Faster time to market, reduced development costs, higher conversions, and optimized UX positively affect revenue. Enterprises can quickly adapt to market changes and introduce new features.
As you can see, microservices bring quite a few benefits to the table. So how do architectural transition success storoies look like in real life?
Microservices examples: Global brands’ stories
Many large companies have adopted microservices architecture hoping to improve scalability, agility, and reliability.
Here’s how some of the most notable examples of how the top tech enterprises in tech have leveraged microservices to enhance their operations and customer experience.
1. The Netflix microservices example
Netflix utilizes an AWS microservices architecture . Any communication between microservices happens over well-defined APIs, allowing polyglot development.
This helps to keep the cloud cost-effective and eliminates a single point of failure, even if engineers modify numerous service areas simultaneously.
Each app running on the system is in charge of a discrete portion of Netflix's vast operation. For example, each of the functions listed below is handled by a distinct microservice:
Making a list of movies that appear on the top menu;
Charging your credit card when it's time to renew membership;
Keeping track of the most effective Content Delivery Appliance (CDA) in your region to see if one becomes clogged or fails;
Automatically switching you to the best CDA with the best internet connection;
Keeping a digital version of the original high-quality files on AWS servers;
Ensuring that a different set of AWS servers converts the original copy into video qualities, formats, sizes, and audio that may play on all sorts of devices, including mobile devices, smart TVs, and gaming consoles;
Determining what device you're using to view Netflix and give the appropriate video format;
Adding copyright indicia to all files (Digital Rights Management).
Seems like a lot? Yet these are only a handful of ways Netflix leverages a microservices architecture to its advantage, relying on it for hundreds more functions that the platform performs thanks to it.
2. The Spotify microservices example
Spotify, with over 75 million monthly active users, utilizes a microservices architecture to provide a seamless and reliable experience.
Customers using applications like Spotify don't want to worry about the app going down, so the aim is to provide a hassle-free experience. In order to do that, Spotify uses microservices to:
Divide the network into independent single-purpose microservices with autonomous development teams.
Assign each service independently to be responsible for a specific functionality, such as playlist management, user authentication, or music recommendation.
Scale individual components as needed thanks to microservices. For example, if a particular service experiences high demand, it can be scaled independently without affecting others.
Make customer experience is more consistent because these services operate in silos. As a result, customer support is less dependent on one another, and the company can improve it without affecting the service.
Confine any new problems to a single service for it not to affect the entire system.
Use of microservices is a core component of Spotify’s technical strategy, enabling rapid development and stable performance. By structuring its engineering teams and infrastructure around microservices, Spotify can innovate continuously and provide a high-quality experience to its users.
3. The Amazon microservices example
Amazon's journey from a monolithic architecture to microservices is a classic example of the race towards scalability and flexibility.
Initially, Amazon faced issues with scalability and deployment times. The monolithic architecture made it difficult to scale individual components and led to lengthy deployment cycles.
The company transitioned to a microservices architecture, breaking down its monolithic application into smaller, independently deployable services. Here's how Amazon approaches microservices:
Amazon's platform consists of many small, independent services for various business functions.
Individual services can be updated and deployed without affecting the entire system.
Each service can be scaled independently based on its specific demand.
Different microservices at Amazon can use the most suitable database for their needs.
By isolating services, Amazon ensures that a failure in one service does not cascade and cause widespread system outages.
Amazon's organizational structure supports small, cross-functional teams, often called " two-pizza teams ," responsible for specific microservices.
Amazon's success with microservices has set a benchmark for other enterprises. It demonstrated the power of this architecture in achieving operational efficiency and business agility for the most prominent ecommerce platform in the world.
4. The Etsy microservices example
Etsy, the popular ecommerce platform for original handmade and vintage goods, adopted microservices to improve its deployment processes and overall system performance.
Like many companies, Etsy started with a monolithic approach, which posed challenges in scaling and deploying new features. Before moving to microservices, Etsy was also known to struggle with performance.
Here’s how they addressed it:
Etsy gradually transitioned to microservices, focusing on decoupling its application into smaller, manageable services. It allowed for independent development, testing, and deployment of services.
The company introduced a 2-tier API with meta-endpoints to aggregate additional endpoints, transforming general-purpose resources into device-specific ones.
To address performance issues, Etsy utilized cURL for parallel HTTP calls , enabling API concurrency and overcoming the limitations of sequential processing.
Since implementing microservices a few years ago, Etsy has achieved faster upgrades, concurrent processing, and scalable innovation, significantly improving platform performance and responsiveness.
5. The Zadig & Voltaire microservices example
Zadig & Voltaire , a well-known fashion company, was one of the first merchants to employ Magento in 2008.
For almost a decade, known for establishing ecommerce standards, Magento was an ideal match for them, however, the brand needed to unify its UX across markets, which required overhauling the frontend layer completely. Zadig & Voltaire. However, they decided to overhaul the frontend layer to unify their UX across markets.
For this purpose, they chose Alokai.
The company needed to increase performance and flexibility to offer tailored bargains on all desired markets, which was difficult without rebuilding the IT architecture and replacing some manual procedures with automation.
What the Alokai team did was use a microservices design approach that included:
Decoupling the frontend from the backend, using Storefront UI .
Adopting a contemporary Headless CMS .
Embracing the potential of Progressive Web App ( PWA ) tech.
Alokai, in addition to combining the benefits of native and desktop apps, brought along more advantages such as:
Using data internationally but also differentiating content due to the geolocation system
Synchronizing data with Magento automatically facilitates the management of daily tasks
Improving SEO ranking by increasing performance and reducing bounce rates
Read the full Zadig & Voltaire case study!
The power of microservices for enterprises
The microservices architecture pattern addresses many common challenges found in monolithic applications and service-oriented architectures.
Because major application components are divided into smaller, separately deployed features, apps built on this architecture pattern are generally more robust, scalable, and capable of continuous delivery.
Microservices enable businesses to stay competitive and responsive in a fast-paced market. The importance of adopting flexible, scalable, and resilient architectures will only grow, making microservices an essential consideration for any forward-thinking enterprise.
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