MICROSERVICES: A

CHEAT SHEET

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 MICROSERVICES: A CHEAT SHEET

TABLE OF CONTENTS

03 What are microservices?

04 How are microservices different from
service-oriented architecture?
05 What are use cases for microservices?
06 Are microservices a mature method for
building applications?
06 Can existing applications be trans-
formed into microservice-based ones?
07 How can businesses and devel-
opers get started using microservice
architecture?

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 MICROSERVICES: A CHEAT SHEET

MICROSERVICES: A CHEAT SHEET

If you want to build software that is more resilient, agile, and faster, you can do just that
with microservice architecture.

BY BRANDON VIGLIAROLO

If you are involved in the software development world, even indirectly, you’ve probably heard someone mention
“microservices.” But just what does that mean?

In the past, applications were developed using monolithic architecture, meaning that all the dependencies, subrou-
tines, libraries, and necessary snippets of code had to be built into the app directly. If any one of those elements goes
bad, the entire application can come crashing to a halt.

Software monoliths have other problems, too: A simple update can leave an IT team with hours of work recon-
necting data sources, making sure clients are updated, or addressing unforeseen problems that a small bit of new
code causes in an unexpected place.

In short, software development has long been plagued by the need to program everything in one place using a style
of software architecture that doesn’t meet modern cloud-based computing needs. But what’s the alternative? It’s
microservices architecture.

WHAT ARE MICROSERVICES?

Microservice architecture is complicated and many of the articles and blog posts outlining it from companies
like IBM make the argument that a single definition of microservices is difficult to come by.

One of the most satisfying definitions I’ve seen comes from software developer Martin Fowler, who describes
microservice architecture as “an approach to developing a single application as a suite of small services, each
running in its own process and communicating with lightweight mechanisms, often an HTTP resource
application programming interface (API).”

Microservices are especially useful as more and more computing moves into the cloud, which makes
maintaining monolithic applications difficult and old-fashioned. Why put all of your eggs in a single cloud
basket that can limit your ability to scale, make changes, and reduce stability?

Fowler points out that monolithic applications require complete duplication onto new servers to scale, eating
up a lot of computing resources. Microservice architecture, on the other hand, allows small, independent
components to be deployed to different servers, where they can be scaled or replicated as needed.

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 MICROSERVICES: A CHEAT SHEET

IBM further explains how microservices work, and defines it as a cloud-native approach to building applications
from “loosely coupled and independently deployable smaller components, or services” that:

• Have their own stack;

• Use REST APIs and other forms of communication to connect to other services; and
• Are sorted by business capability and separated into “need-to-know” chunks via bounded context.
Some of the advantages of opting for a microservices approach over a monolithic one can be assumed from its
contrast to monolithic design, but it’s still worth stating them:

• Because they function independently, each component can be built in whatever language the developer of
that component prefers.
• Individual components can be updated on their own since their internal operation is inconsequential to the
app as a whole. As long as they report back the correct data, the app will continue working.
• Scaling can be done to each individual component, saving time and computing resources spent replicating
entire applications to account for load on a single component.
• A component no longer meeting the need of its application can be replaced without affecting the app as a whole.
• Applications can be decentralized between multiple cloud providers, servers, and other services both local
and remote.
To summarize, microservices are an app design architecture with a philosophy based on building independent
components that all connect via API to reduce complexity, increase scalability, and allow applications to be
distributed with more ease than traditional monolithic-style program architecture.

HOW ARE MICROSERVICES DIFFERENT FROM SERVICE-

ORIENTED ARCHITECTURE?
Comparisons are frequently made between microservices and service-oriented architecture (SOA). While
the two may seem similar at first glance, they’re nearly completely different except in the most basic ways.

Both SOA and microservices involve the creation of small components that communicate data to other
services, but the scope, purpose, and how the communication occurs are completely different.

For starters, SOA is an enterprise-wide architecture, whereas microservice architecture is a way to

build a single application. The idea behind SOA is to create a common framework for communication
that allows applications, data sources, and other network-connected elements to communicate in a
platform-agnostic manner.

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 MICROSERVICES: A CHEAT SHEET

SOA wants communication between elements to happen fast, smooth, and without barriers; this is a radical
difference from microservices, which want independent elements that aren’t dependent on each other at all.
SOA integrations are reused constantly—that’s the goal of SOA, according to IBM. In the case of microser-
vices, reuse is completely undesirable--if a component is being called in more than one place by its main
application, agility and resilience will suffer.

Microservice architecture is all about independence, swappable parts, and speed. SOA, on the other hand, is
designed to create network synchronicity, which is a completely different goal.

WHAT ARE USE CASES FOR MICROSERVICES?

There’s a lot to think about when it comes to microservices and not all of it is easy to wrap your head around. One
of those difficult elements is seeing the use cases for microservices which, while plenty, can be difficult to identify if
you’re not well-versed on the particulars of how microservices work.

Software consulting firm QAT Global points out six potential use cases for microservices:

• Modernizing legacy applications: Legacy software can be attached to individual microservices to

make those systems accessible to newer software. When doing so, plan a microservice around a specific
business functionality.
• Big data: Microservices are a natural fit for big data applications and can fit seamlessly into a data pipeline to
perform specific tasks. Examples include identifying fraud, managing traffic, examining medical research, etc.
• Real-time processing: The publish-subscribe framework behind microservices can be used to process data in
real time and deliver immediate outputs for banking, customer service, data streaming, and more.
• Simplifying growth: Apps and organizations that are likely to grow rapidly can make use of microservices
because of how easily they scale. In addition, individual modules can be re-deployed for various purposes,
reducing development time and speeding time-to-market.
• Advanced analytics environments: Machine learning, manufacturing, and the energy sector can all use
microservices to validate computational models, perform A/B testing, and multivariate testing.
• Distributing resource-intensive tasks: Computing that eats up a lot of RAM or CPU can be distributed
to multiple microservices across multiple machines, making it easier to perform those tasks, redeploy
resource-intense services, and reduce load time.
These six use cases cover much of what microservices can be used for, but not all. Microservices may have been
around for several years, but they’re still an emerging technology that has many applications yet to be discovered.

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 MICROSERVICES: A CHEAT SHEET

ARE MICROSERVICES A MATURE METHOD FOR BUILDING

APPLICATIONS?
The concept of microservices has been around since at least 2005, when Peter Rodgers gave a talk about micro-
web-services at the Cloud Computing Expo. Since then, the microservices market has exploded. A report from
Verified Market Research even expects it to hit $3.1 billion in value by 2026, a growth rate of more than 20%
over its value in 2019.

Whether or not microservices are mature is likely an individual opinion, but the tech industry seems to
think so--at least based on adoption rates. TechRepublic Premium’s research seems to back this up, finding
that most organizations are familiar with microservices and 73% have already integrated them into their
development processes.

Companies that have begun using microservices reported to TechRepublic that they’ve seen benefits like
faster deployments, greater flexibility in the face of changing conditions, and quick scaling, all of which are
to be expected, given what microservices are designed to do.

Those still wondering if microservices are mature enough for their organization need to think of them less
as a product and more as a design philosophy. The framework for microservices is there in the current tech
world and additional tools aren’t needed. Microservice architecture is simply a new way of thinking about
designing software that puts the future of applications more in line with the cloud-based, decentralized
world of computing that is increasingly becoming the norm.

CAN EXISTING APPLICATIONS BE TRANSFORMED INTO

MICROSERVICE-BASED ONES?
The short answer to whether or not existing monolithic applications can be transformed into micros-
ervice ones is yes, but technology consultant Zhamak Dehghani said it’s “an epic journey” that presents a
lot of challenges.

Going down the path of deconstructing a monolithic application into microservices, Dehghani said, “requires on
demand access to deployment environment, building new kinds of continuous delivery pipelines to independently
build, test, and deploy executable services, and the ability to secure, debug, and monitor a distributed architecture.”

Dehghani suggests that the first step should be to decouple a simple service, build out underlying infrastructure,
and then work on moving large, vertical services that don’t change very often.

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 MICROSERVICES: A CHEAT SHEET

One thing to definitely avoid, Dehghani said, is the temptation to extract existing code into an independent service,
which she said often “causes the developers, and more importantly technical managers, to disregard the high cost
and low value of extracting and reusing the code.”

Instead, don’t be afraid to revisit certain modules of code and see if they’re current with organizational needs and
objectives. It’s entirely possible some new code could do a better job, but that means committing to some major
development initiatives.

No matter how you look at it, breaking a monolithic application down into microservices will take a lot of work,
requires extensive planning, and will probably involve spending a lot of money in order to save more in the future.

HOW CAN BUSINESSES AND DEVELOPERS GET STARTED

USING MICROSERVICE ARCHITECTURE?
In the TechRepublic Premium research mentioned above, one of the major hurdles respondents said they faced
was a lack of skills and knowledge to make microservices work in their organizations—but what kinds of skills
are needed?

Keep in mind that microservices aren’t a single thing: They’re a design philosophy, so there won’t necessarily be
certain programming languages or hard skills you need to know. Instead, it’s all about knowing where you’re at,
where you want to go, and how microservices can get you there.

In an article for TechRepublic, Patrick Gray said “the best place to start simply is when acquiring new software or
platforms,” which is a perfect time to think of how those platforms could benefit from microservices.

Find simple, particular, use cases for microservices that have a single business objective to meet and can liberate
coworkers or customers “buried under spreadsheets, macros, and Access databases trying to essentially marry infor-
mation from various services in your company,” Gray said.

You’ll also want to have a solid grasp on DevOps, which Microsoft said goes hand-in-hand with microservices.
“DevOps practices, such as Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery, are used to drive microservice
deployments,” said Microsoft’s Sam Guckenheimer.

“DevOps teams encapsulate individual pieces of functionality in microservices and build larger systems by
composing the microservices like building blocks,” Guckenheimer said. If your organization hasn’t tried to deploy
software using a DevOps model, you may want to start there first.

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 MICROSERVICES: A CHEAT SHEET

If you’re already working with the communication, collaboration, and cross-team integration of DevOps, you’re
already halfway to understanding microservices. All that’s left is to move the same philosophy of how to organize
developers into the realm of organizing software.

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