Design Your Microservice Application: An Easy 8-Step Guide 🚀🛠️
Muhammad Umer Saleem
Sr.Software Engineer | Javascript | TypeScript | Node.js | GO | React | React Native |
Monolithic vs. Microservices Architectures 🏛️ vs 🌐
As you may be aware, a monolithic application is constructed as a single unit, while microservices are a collection of smaller, independent services. Consequently, when a client presents extensive dataset requirements for their application, determining the suitable architecture can be quite intricate. This decision also relies on their future goals, similar to a common interview question where candidates are asked to envision themselves in the next 5 years. Thus, considering the potential for enhancing the application based on user requirements becomes a pivotal factor in choosing between monolithic and microservices architectures.
Case Study: Microservices Architecture for Extensive Datasets 🛠️💬
Now, let's delve into a case study involving a client with extensive dataset requirements for their application. If, as a Solution Architect, you are tasked with establishing a microservices architecture for this application, how would you approach it? While I believe you are more capable than I am, let's collaborate on this.
Approach 1: Service-Oriented Design 🔐👤
Firstly, I treat each service as a class with distinct properties and methods. I will identify functionalities that can be encapsulated within independent services, treating them as self-contained units. For instance, let's consider an Authentication Module as a service. This service is responsible for storing user credentials, roles, handling logout, login token generation, and other tasks such as determining access rights based on user roles.
The Authentication Service operates independently, allowing for easy updates, scaling, and maintenance without affecting other parts of the system.
Approach 2: Emphasis on Client Business Logic 🌐💼
Next, I focus on client business logic, which is crucial for building independent services. Many large organizations emphasize Domain-Driven Design (DDD) for this reason, as it enhances the ability to work confidently in requirements breakdowns. By establishing clear boundaries for microservices, I work on client business logics. 🌐💼
To illustrate, consider an e-commerce application with an Order Management Microservice responsible for handling the creation, processing, and fulfillment of orders. Business logics for developing independent modules include:
Each of these components becomes an independent service based on business logic. This approach ensures modularity, scalability, and isolation. Each service can be updated or scaled independently without impacting other parts of the system. 🚚💳📦
Approach 3: Use Case Alignment 🧩🚀
During the architecture design phase, my third approach is to identify distinct use cases or functionalities within the client's requirements. It is crucial to align the design of microservices with the specific use cases or functionalities that the system needs to support. Key factors to consider during this process include Modularity and Separation of Concerns, Independent Deployment, Scalability, and Ease of Maintenance. Let's consider an e-commerce application as an example: 🧩🚀
User Authentication Microservice:
Use Case: Managing user authentication and authorization.
Functionality: User login, registration, token generation, role-based access control.
Product Catalog Microservice:
Use Case: Managing and providing information about products.
Functionality: Retrieving product details, updating inventory, handling product categories.
Order Management Microservice:
Use Case: Handling customer orders.
Functionality: Creating new orders, processing payments, coordinating order fulfillment.
In case there is a need to update the authentication logic, it can be done independently within the User Authentication Microservice without affecting other functionalities. Scaling can be optimized; for example, the Order Management Microservice can be scaled independently during peak order times. ⚖️📈
Approach 4: Dependency Management 🔄⚖️
For my fourth approach to creating independent microservices, I focus on identifying dependencies between different services. This helps in designing effective communication in the application. Microservices should aim for low inter-service dependencies to ensure independence and autonomy. Let's consider a use case of an e-commerce application involving the Order Management Microservice, Inventory Management Microservice, and Product Catalog Microservice.
In a scenario of high dependency, the Order Management Microservice heavily relies on the Inventory Management Microservice for real-time stock availability. The issue arises when a change in the Inventory Management Microservice can impact the Order Management Microservice, leading to potential disruptions in order processing.
On the other hand, in a scenario of low dependency, the Order Management Microservice only relies on the Product Catalog Microservice to fetch product information during order creation. The advantage here is that changes to the Inventory Management Microservice won't directly affect the Order Management Microservice, as long as the Product Catalog Microservice maintains compatibility. 🔄⚖️
Approach 5: Visual Representation through Diagrams 📊🔗
As part of my fifth approach, I leverage different diagrams to visually represent the services. I create data flow diagrams to illustrate the flow of data between different parts of the system. This helps identify areas where data can be encapsulated within microservices to reduce dependencies.
Approach 6: Tech Stack Identification 🛠️💻🚀
In my sixth approach, I will identify the tech stack for each service based on its functionality. Let's discuss two microservices tech stacks we discussed earlier: the Product Catalog Microservice and the Order Management Microservice.
Product Catalog Microservice:
Order Management Microservice:
For the simple relation between the Language and Framework:
Approach 7: Deployment Flow Design 🐳🌐
In my seventh approach, I will design the flow for deployments of application services. I will evaluate the potential use of containerization (e.g., Docker) and orchestration (e.g., Kubernetes) for deployment. I will use Docker for the containerization of individual services, encapsulating microservices along with their dependencies to provide isolation for independent execution. Additionally, I will use Kubernetes for easy scaling, deployment, and management of microservices. Kubernetes handles distribution, provides fault tolerance, high availability, load balancing, and service discovery, and simplifies communication between microservices. 🐳🌐
Approach 8: API Design for Loose Coupling 🔄📡
In my eighth approach, I will design APIs for services. Well-defined APIs support loose coupling between microservices. There are various patterns for microservices communication, depending on requirements. Common types include HTTP/RESTful APIs, GraphQL APIs (useful for flexible and efficient data retrieval), Message Queues/Asynchronous Messaging (ideal for asynchronous communication), and gRPC (Remote Procedure Call, suitable for low-latency, high-performance scenarios). Multiple patterns exist, but we won't discuss them here. 🔄📡
By utilizing these approaches, we can design our application based on a microservices architecture. While there are multiple approaches, these eight will provide a high-level overview to help you design your application. 🌟🌐
#SoftwareDevelopment #DataManagement #ServiceOrientedArchitecture #ITInfrastructure #Kubernete #Docker #ProgrammingLanguages #Microservice #MicroserviceArchtect
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1ySo helpful👍