Microservices Explained: How To Transform Your Business

Wondering about microservices? In this article, microservices are explained and you’ll learn how to transform your business.

Today’s consumers are more demanding than ever before. They want the best customer experience delivered fast and reliably.

If your business is slow in delivering its solutions, you’re out of luck. They’ll abandon it and look for faster alternatives.

A business should make the best use of IT. More so to ensure that it delivers uniform and complete solutions across its different platforms.

This article looks at the microservices explained. Read on to learn how you can use it to transform your business and stay ahead of your competition.

Microservices Explained: How It Works

According to a study done by Lightstep, 9 in 10 enterprises have already adopted or are planning to adopt microservices. What’s more, 60% of them report that the implementation of the framework is already in the advanced stages.

So what is Microservices architecture? It is a method for software development that involves building small individual service modules. These modules work together to address a larger complex business problem.

They form part of a well-defined interface. Microservices speed up processes that would have otherwise been too slow.

A business would, therefore, have to identify and define its core digital assets and align them to the business’ capability. It would then proceed to build single-purpose applications for each of these core assets. Below are some defining characteristics of microservices architecture:

• The larger software can be broken down into independent and isolated service modules.
• Microservices are distributed.
• Systems implemented using Microservice architecture display a higher degree of fault-tolerance.
• The architecture adopts a straightforward routing process.
• Microservices focuses on individual business capabilities.
• It is highly scalable.

You might want your customers to access your system on a variety of different devices. Or, you want a framework that can support your rapidly growing business. Either way, microservices architecture is the logical solution.

Microservices Architecture vs. Monolith Systems

In a microservices framework, each unit runs autonomously. It communicates with its counterpart through an API. Each module is robust, flexible, and complete.

Monolith architecture, on the other hand, means that all the components of the program code are interdependent. They share the same memory space and are designed to work together as a single cohesive unit.

This becomes a problem when any updates or changes need to be made to a monolith system. The entire technology stack would have to be built and deployed at once.

So what happens if you decide to implement the solution using a new framework? It would have to be written from scratch.

Microservices Architecture Explained: How It Can Transform Your Business

If you are wondering how microservices can transform your business, it all boils down to speed and ease. Let’s look at these in more detail below:

1. Easy Application-Building Processes

Each microservices module is a single application. Each has its own block of code. Say there’s a particular application that you are developing.

You only need to focus on the code within the specific module you’re working on. What’s more, microservices can be implemented in most programming languages, databases, and software environments.

It gives developers more freedom to build, rebuild, deploy, and re-deploy each application. This can be done in a manner that’s independent of all other modules in the software.

2. Easy Application-Maintenance Processes

Once every application module is up and running, troubleshooting and maintenance of the entire system are straightforward. There’s one major advantage of microservice architecture over monolith applications.

If there’s a problem with one aspect of the module, only the associated service is affected. The functionality of other parts of the program carries on as usual. So, in the event that one portion of the software fails, it’s easy to compensate.

3. Unmatched Flexibility

Monolith applications are yoked to the specific programming language they’re written in. Microservices, however, can have each module written using different technologies.

A developer can pick and choose which programming language is the most appropriate for a particular aspect of the software. This offers a level of flexibility you wouldn’t get in monolith programs. The fact that different modules can be written in different languages doesn’t affect the functionality of the entire system.

4. Supports Innovation

Developers thrive in organizations that have implemented a microservices architecture. They are less inclined to try and test out new ideas on monolith systems. This is because any changes would impact the entire system.

What’s more, in the event those changes don’t take, it becomes difficult to roll them back. Doing so would negatively affect the operations of the business. This stifles innovation that would inevitably leave the business stuck in a rut.

Microservices allow individual teams in an organization to take ownership of specific services. They’re free to test out new progressive ideas that improve the functionality and productivity of their unit.

They do so without affecting other parts of the business. If the new ideas fail, rolling back is easy.

Such businesses are capable of continuous innovation. This ultimately promotes business growth and enhanced customer experience.

5. Improves Program Quality

Microservices borrows a leaf from the object-oriented approach of software development. Dividing a program into smaller constituent modules makes the coding process easier. It’s also less prone to mistakes.

Composing, maintaining, and reusing code in other aspects of the program becomes easier. It gives the program a higher level of accuracy in the code.

6. Increases Speed and Productivity

Microservices focuses on breaking down programs into smaller easier to manage service modules. This means the development of different services can occur simultaneously. Doing so shortens the overall development time.

Teams that are working on different modules don’t have to worry about being held back by others. Quality assurance also becomes easier. This is due to the fact that each team can work on testing and improving their services.

They don’t have to rely on other modules that might be taking a bit longer to develop their units. In this way, microservices architecture boosts profitability, and productivity. The speed of the entire business is also enhanced.

7. Easy Scalability

What happens if you think of a new way that your business can implement to enhance the overall customer experience? Microservices architecture lets you do that without having to reconfigure the entire system.

You can develop and add a new application to the existing framework. What’s more, if a particular component no longer works or is outdated, it becomes easy to update the application or remove it altogether.

This comes in handy if the module no longer serves a purpose. An emerging network paradigm, for instance, can benefit from the ease of scalability that microservices architecture offers.

8. Improves Availability

With a microservices architecture, it’s easy to identify and isolate a failing module. It implements techniques like caching, health-checking, circuit breakers, and bulkheads.

These enable you to contain the impact of a failing unit. Doing so improves the availability of the whole program.

9. Supports Autonomy

Suppose that your business has adopted a distributed model. How would you develop and implement a monolith system?  With cross-functional teams working in different parts of the country/globe, the whole process can be messy and cumbersome.

Microservices architecture gives developers the leeway to work autonomously in much smaller groups. This drastically reduces the time taken to make technical decisions. It ends up being a massive gain when developing a large solution.

10. Built Around Business Capabilities

The focus point of microservices is building functionality as opposed to working on projects. Businesses express what functionalities or capabilities they want to support service delivery.

The developers then work on developing these modules. They should be able to support these capabilities. This is regardless independent of the technologies used in their construction.

That way the services can be reused in multiple business channels. It would all depend on the requirements. The result is that these services become adaptable over various contexts.

The Bottom Line on Microservices

Microservices explained: Do you need to implement a large solution for your organization? Or do you have a startup whose system functionality you intend to scale up in the future?

Whichever way you look at it microservices architecture is your only option. It supports rapid growth, and real-time processing, and simplifies cross-team coordination.

It’s a great tool to use to provide more value to your customers and stakeholders. Go on – give your business the boost it needs.

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