In software development, the terms ‘monolith’ and ‘microservice’ are extremely significant. These terms are used to describe two competing schools of thought on how applications should be developed. Software architecture is the underlying plan behind an application. It dictates how an application will function, how it can be updated, and how all of the pieces fit together.
Monolith based architecture is self-contained, with all aspects of a piece of software developed using the same code. Microservice based architecture is more distributed, with different aspects of an application being developed as separate services and connected together holistically.
In recent years, microservice based software development has been becoming more and more popular. Massive service providers like Netflix develop their applications using microservice architecture, which has led to other businesses taking the same route. So why is microservice architecture becoming so popular? This article takes a quick look at some of the reasons behind the rise of microservice adoption.
Flexible Scaling
Clients typically want the capability and uptake of their applications to increase over time. Microservices adoption enables developers to ‘cluster’ new services around old ones in order to swiftly scale the capacity and capabilities of an application up.
Agility
Modern development strategy is based on the autonomy of small teams working on small projects that influence the whole. Microservices enable small teams to work in an agile and interconnected fashion.
Maintenance
Maintenance is far easier to complete when individual services can be maintained and updated without the need for a complete software update. Microservices are individually edit-friendly and can be made ready to contribute towards the entirety of an application’s functionality at the drop of a hat.
Update Agility
Developers can deploy changes to a specific aspect or service without impacting the other elements of an application. This allows them to provide clients with lean, swift updates without needing a full update of the application as a whole.
Developer Task Management
As developers are able to work on individual aspects of an application, they no longer have to delve deep into the full stack of the software as a whole to complete their work. Ultimately, this makes the completion of a development far easier to manage – if the team is able to communicate effectively. Task management becomes easier when developers can freely focus on their own area of work without drastically impacting the work of others.
Security
In a monolithic software architecture, any compromise to any service within an application will compromise the security of the whole. Each microservice is its own ‘node.’ If one is compromised, it can automatically be isolated from all of the others and lead to a tighter ship overall. Modern developers typically appreciate the ‘flood doors’ that microservices can provide.
Cycle Speed
As each individual service can be edited without the need for full stack updates, improvements can be made more continuously in a microservice based architecture. Modern clients expect services to improve at a rate that would simply not be possible using a monolithic architectural structure.
