Achieving Enterprise Agility With Microservices
Enterprise Agility with Microservices
February 20, 2023 4:49 PM
Microservices architecture, also known as microservices, is best suited to today's business environment. How applications are developed and deployed has changed because of microservice capabilities in technology implementation. This capability is more dynamic in fostering business agility and lowering business costs. It is, therefore, a part of business strategy, not technology.
What are Microservices?
Wikipedia describes microservices as an architectural pattern that arranges applications as loosely coupled services communicating via lightweight protocols.
These definitions are full of technical concepts, so it is not surprising that we would be astonished. Let's now look at the definition to understand the components' meaning.
Loosely coupled: A weak association exists between components of a system.
Implications: Enterprises don't need to focus their resources on all components. Instead, they can deal with the component(s) where problems have occurred while the rest of their normal function continues.
Fine: The system is broken down into smaller code units.
Implication: As data transfer frequency increases, data transfer occurs at supersonic speeds. This dramatically improves the synchronization of system components and their communication.
Communication protocols designed to simplify communication between system components are known as lightweight protocols.
Implication: These protocols, based on simple algorithms and hash functions, reduce the stress on communication channels by omitting non-essential information. As a result, this protocol allows companies to have flexibility and scalability.
Let's now get a better understanding of microservices. Martin Flower, a prominent proponent of microservices, will be our guide. "A microservices architecture is a way to design software applications as suites or independently deployable services," he says.
Finally, microservices can be described as an architectural approach that allows a software system to be seen as a collection of components. This allows for faster development and the addition of new features by allowing these components to be managed separately.
Evolution of Microservices from Monolithic Systems
Monolithic architecture was the norm before microservice architecture. Monolithic architecture is a way to build an entire application from one module. This model consists of three functional entity databases: client-side, user interface (HTML pages or JS), and server-side application. The server-side application executes the client-side UI business logic.
This architecture has a problem: it requires "building all functionality at one time and deploying it." meaning that you need to make changes to the application after deployment. The same effort is required to build and deploy the server side. As a result, there is a lack of agility, no code reuse, and increased costs to scale up business systems and applications.
Microservices and microservice architecture were born out of this dynamic and mobile business environment.
Understanding How Microservices Architecture Works
Before we move inside, let's clarify that microservices and service-oriented architecture are two different things, even though some of their features may look similar. All these microservices in a microservices architecture are built around business capabilities and then integrated as needed. These microservices are connected via APIs. As a result, microservices communication can be scaled easily and is not dependent on the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB).
These services communicate using messages or interfaces. These microservices are arranged into services and not library calls. This is because libraries are declared in software programs, and calls to libraries are stored in memory. Therefore, these microservices must be redeployed every time there are changes made to them. However, microservices allow services to communicate with each other through RPCs.
Microservices are modular-based, meaning a business application does not have to be built in one unit. Instead, larger business applications are broken down into smaller modules based on functions. Each function is considered a service and is designed to enhance business capabilities.
Each service will be responsible for its data management and code base. It is built, tested, and deployed like any other application. Developers can develop each service in any programming language they choose.
Developers can modify any service and then create and deploy services without rebuilding and redeploying the entire business application. This way, microservice architecture promotes transparency, agility, and code reusability and requires no extra outlays to scale up the business systems and applications.
What motivates companies to choose microservices?
Many organizations are moving from monolithic architectures to microservices architectures because of their operational and business benefits. These are the reasons why this is a good move:
A microservice may be replaced or upgraded without affecting other microservices that make up the software program.
Microservices are usually managed by a small team of knowledgeable individuals and are designed around business capabilities.
Microservices are a tool to apply DevOps methods. Since they don't cover the entire application, these procedures are easier to follow, test, and maintain.
Organizations don't have to stick to a specific technical framework for designing and using microservices. They can expand their technology stack by following fundamental principles.
Every microservice follows a set of principles and uses a common protocol to make data consumption and communication easier between components.
The Primary Supporter of the Service Economy
These services can create new business functions by reusing existing resources. This allows for a significant reduction in development time and costs and a shorter market time. APIs regulate communication between services, so clients don't have to worry about downtime or disruptions in service delivery. Clients can also make new functionality changes. Microservices can promote transparency, better service delivery, and relationships between consumers, clients, stakeholders, enterprises, and other parties.
Continuous Integration and Microservices
In this dynamic business environment, continuous integration is a hot topic. It is because many developers are involved in a project and have different environments in which to execute their code. This creates a variety of challenges for developers. Testing the build in a neutral, stable, and consistent environment is crucial. This is continuous integration. Continuous integration is the process of integrating and building code instantly. This happens throughout the entire development cycle. This is done to ensure that if something fails, it will be caught sooner and easier to fix. Developers can quickly identify and fix code problems to ensure the build is stable.
Micro-service architectures and cloud deployments require the development of a robust, reusable code base. This allows multiple developers to create codes that can be used independently within an overall product. It is crucial to realize that multiple people can run integration projects without the help of an automated system. Continuous integration is a key factor in scaling up microservices' agile capabilities. The modular microservices architecture approach was a key factor in demonstrating the importance of continuous integration in enterprises.
Conclusion
Microservice architecture capabilities are not just for technology implementation; they can also be used as a business strategy. As a result, microservices capabilities are a key factor in digital transformation efforts.
