Things to Consider Prior to Moving to Microservices

Today, majority of the teams developing new apps may prefer to containerize those apps with Docker, then engage microservices architecture to achieve speed as well as agility.

#1: Code Organization

A company can organize its codebase in many different ways; creating a repository for each service, or creating one “mono repo” for the entire services and assigning a folder to each service. However, both approaches come with pros and cons that should be taken into consideration.

#2: Level of Independence

Also, it is important to consider the degree of independence that the company desires. In this case, here are some available options to choose from:

• Each service features a completely independent Database and UI. This is a constant characteristic of extreme microservices — services are completely decoupled and share nothing. The attractive part is that the team responsible for each microservice can select the most applicable database that most suitably addresses their requirements.

But, with this approach, it is harder to make sure that the entire data stores are consistent and in sync. For instance; it is important to ascertain that all the data stores have the same User IDs, and that everything is complete in each of them. In addition, each team needs to replicate database management tasks such as backups.

• The second option is to share some components, and this is normally the database. Subsequently, it is easier to establish standards across the whole teams and achieve data consistency across the entire services. But, it also implies there is no complete decoupling of services. As a result, other services are likely to be affected if someone updates a schema or table.

Obviously, the two approaches come with pros and cons. Therefore, an organization should choose what works best for them. Global Charter advises its client to go for the second option, so that they don’t experience inconsistency in data.

#3: Operational Complexity

Microservices promote operational complexity — this is because of the need to rethink operations from a completely fundamental view. Therefore, it is important to consider these aspects:

• Load Scaling and Balancing: The need for a scaling approach that surpasses monolithic applications in terms of complexity would arise — they are scaled out at all times. Microservices necessitate figuring out whether to scale the entire services or just a subset, in the event of a spike in demand.
• Infrastructure: Majority of Ops engineers who work on monoliths are not accustomed to the degree of complexity that comes with infrastructure requirements definition for microservices, including the provisioning and maintenance infra for every microservice.

In addition, the scaling up and down of these services necessitates that infrastructure be provisioned and automatically brought down — therefore there is need for a highly sophisticated level of automation.

The team of experts at Charter Global is well experienced in designing strategies for smoother transition to microservices.