Wiredelta

10 Reasons Why Microservices Are the Future

Over the years numerous technologies, architectures, and best practices have sprung up in the software development industry. Microservices are one of the architectural trends which are being adopted by more and more organizations, especially medium and large-sized enterprises. They help businesses to move away from legacy systems and technology, diving into the digital transformation journey.

In this article, we will explore 10 reasons why you should consider microservices as the future in 2020 and beyond and how your business can benefit from it. 

 

What are microservices?

Microservices are an architectural framework for building applications as a combination of small autonomous services formed independently around a particular business domain. They stand in stark contrast to the traditional monolithic systems in which components are developed together. In a standard monolithic architecture, the server-side of the application and database are all based on the same massive codebase. Therefore, if any change or update is required, the developers need to develop and deploy the whole stack at once.

 

Source: Pretius

 

On the contrary, the independence of components in a microservices architecture enables services to run their own process. Because of that, microservices are easy to understand, test and maintain. Due to these advantages, many enterprise companies move away from monolithic architectures and migrate over to this microservice approach. Examples count prominent companies like Netflix, Amazon, PayPal, and Uber.

With the definition out of the way, let’s look at the main reasons for adopting microservices as part of your future stack:

 

1. Flexibility

Microservices allow the usage of the most appropriate technology for different services. That means each team building a particular service can decide on their preferred programming language and framework, as they are working independently. Nevertheless, the services still communicate within the application easily. Furthermore, this independence enables the maintenance of single services without affecting others. 

For instance, the flexibility of microservices enabled The Guardian to enhance the replaceability and upgradeability of their system. Today, they can add, replace or delete different sections on their web platform, primarily important for event sections. That means the developers can remove an event when it ends, without modifying the functionality of the whole website. 

 

2. Reusability

Once the organization develops and implements a microservices architecture, it has the schematic diagram that can be reused and expanded upon for future projects and services. That means even if the programming language, development tools, etc. are different, the organization can keep and reuse much of the core architecture.

 

3. Reduces Risk

Each service is a separate object in the microservices framework, therefore this enables their independent functioning. So, if one component is down, the complete application continues its operation instead of influencing the whole process. In this way, only one element needs to be fixed or rebuilt. This decreases the risk of fall of the business applications.

 

Source: Bachatkar

 

4. Scalability

Another advantage of microservices is the ability of different components to scale at various rates as opposed to monolithic architecture which requires scaling of the whole application. As well as new components can be added without lacking downtime and redeployment of the entire system. That allows microservices to let a system extend fast without a need for an increase in resources. 

Some time ago, Airbnb announced that they reached a 15 hours a week delay in deploying code to production and a growth of 500 000 lines of their platform code. Therefore they decided to integrate microservices. Today, the company has 1000 software engineers instead of 200, improved page load productivity and 100 percent availability.

 

5. Reduces Cost

Microservices also enable organizations to optimize their resources. With their usage, various teams can work on different services that allow operating more quickly. Consequently, the development time is reduced and by separating services, the expensive machines can be avoided.

The raised efficiency of microservices not only reduces infrastructure costs, but it also minimizes IT spend.

Source: Iconfinder

 

6. Continuous delivery

Microservices use a constant delivery model to manage the entire lifecycle of an application. When developers and testing teams work together on a single service, the testing process becomes easy and instant. This method allows organizations to continuously develop and test the code as well as use it from existing libraries.

 

Source: Yotec

 

7. Various data storage 

As opposed to monolithic architectures, microservices enable the storage of data in different locations. In some cases, the companies deal in large data sets and that data adopt various characteristics. Therefore, it may cost some problems. However, with microservices, developers can choose a type of storage that is most appropriate for the needs of each service.

 

8. Easy team collaboration

Related to their concentrated functionality, microservices enable organizations to optimize the team’s efficiency. The team members can focus completely on specific services based on their capabilities. 

That is one of the main reasons behind Netflix’s decision to move to microservices. In its case, 25 engineers faced problems and difficulty working together on the same project. However, by migrating microservices, Netflix divided one team into many small engineering teams working independently and efficiently now.

 

Source: Bitsrc

 

9. Adaptability

With microservice architecture, organizations can use various programming languages or different technologies for building a new feature for their business. That means the developers can implement fast and controlled upgrades without disruption.

Furthermore, in some cases, the whole back-end can be changed in order to keep it up-to-date with new technologies.

 

10. Agility

Each service in a microservice architecture performs only one functionality. Accordingly, it is easier to release, scale and test each service independently as it comprises a lightweight codebase. Because of this advantage, Amazon migrated its monolithic architecture to microservices. Their complex team structure was replaced by smaller, more efficient and cross-functional teams.

 

Summary

You have now gone through the main reasons why microservices will evolve at even faster peace in 2020 and beyond. If you want to dive into this digital transformation journey and to build a system with real potential, we at Wiredelta can help with it providing the latest technologies and architecture solutions! Feel free to contact us for unbinding consultation!

 

Success stories

In the past decade we have launched over 100 websites and more than 20 mobile apps, helping each of our client get closer to their digital goals.

Executive Global
Network

Connecting executives around the world in one of the largest professional networks

Philip Morris
International

Working together towards a smoke-free future for the Nordics.

Ønskeskyen
(GoWish)

Denmark’s largest wish cloud is going global with a brand new look and a lot of new features

How can we bring you value?