Migration to Microservices4-step Strategy
In the rapidly evolving world of web development, microservices have emerged as a prominent topic of interest. Unlike monolithic systems, microservices are designed to adapt and scale according to changing market demands. Consequently, modern enterprises are actively transitioning their legacy monolithic systems to a microservices architecture.
Contents
Advantages of the Microservice Architecture Determining the Right Time to Migrate The Migration Process Process Discovery Defining Bounded Contexts Establishing Service Boundaries Migration
Conclusion
Advantages of the Microservice Architecture
Microservices, as the name suggests, are small independent units that break down a monolithic application into separate services. In contrast to the sluggish and cumbersome nature of monolithic applications, microservices offer faster development and deployment capabilities. Migrating from a monolithic architecture to a microservice-based approach brings numerous benefits, including:
Teams act within a small and well understood context, reducing cognitive complexity and shortening development cycle times.
Microservices align closely with their respective business domains, allowing the use of ubiquitous language and thus improving collaboration.
Microservices allow each service to be independently scaled to meet demand for the application feature it supports.
Microservices enable continuous integration and continuous delivery, making it easy to try out new ideas and to roll back if something doesn't work.
Service independence increases an application's resistance to failure.
Teams have the freedom to choose the best tool to solve their specific problems.
Determining the Right Time to Migrate
Once the decision to embrace microservices is made, the crucial question arises: when is the ideal time to initiate the migration process? Typically, migrating a monolithic application is advisable when an organization experiences growth, encounters productivity and scaling challenges, or faces disruptions in inter-team communication.
The Migration Process
The migration to a microservice architecture is a complex endeavor that presents numerous challenges. To navigate these challenges successfully, we have designed a comprehensive four-step strategy that was proven effective in facilitating businesses' transition to microservices.
01 Process Discovery
- Workshop is organized involving domain experts and engineering teams.
- All the business processes occurring in the application are mapped.
- Standardized domain language is established, resolving any potential ambiguities between domain experts and software engineers.
- The outcome is a top-level document (process map) detailing the application's functionalities and operations.
02 Defining Bounded Contexts
- Aggregates, services, and their corresponding bounded contexts are defined with the help of the process map.
- This information is captured in a bounded context canvas for each context, encompassing its capabilities, responsibilities, policies, dependencies, and ubiquitous language.
- Leveraging the bounded context canvases, appropriate microservices are identified. These microservices typically align with the defined contexts but can vary in size, ranging from a single aggregate to an entire bounded context.
03 Establishing Service Boundaries
- Regression testing processes and suites are designed and implemented to ensure the preservation of existing functionalities during the refactoring phase.
- The existing solution is refactored to isolate bounded contexts from the rest of the application while maintaining its current behavior.
04 Migration
- The isolated bounded contexts are gradually migrated to a set of microservices defined in the second step of the process.
- Each resulting microservice is independently deployable and scalable, facilitated by an automated pipeline.
- With each migration, the accumulated technical debt and cognitive load on the development team are reduced, enabling faster and more reliable development.
Conclusion
By following this comprehensive four-step strategy, businesses can successfully navigate the complexities of migrating from a monolithic architecture to a microservice architecture, unlocking the full potential of scalability, flexibility, and resilience offered by microservices.