Microservices

Monoliths and the microservices backlash

22 May 2023

We need a more nuanced understanding of how to get the best out of monoliths, microservices, and serverless architectures.

When to use serverless architecture... and when not to

9 February 2023

The potential benefits of an architecture based on serverless functions are nuanced, making it a good fit only for some very specific use cases.

Data meshes and microservices - the similarities are uncanny

10 January 2022

The data mesh is doing for data warehousing what microservices did for solution architecture…

Orchestration vs choreography for microservice workflows

5 December 2021

Orchestration and choreography can complement each other. There doesn’t have to be an exclusive choice between two opposing styles.

Do you really need Kubernetes?

22 April 2020

If you are working with a lot of twelve-factor services then probably, yes. That said, you may get a creeping feeling that Kubernetes was designed to solve problems at a scale that most people never reach…?

When is an event not an event?

8 February 2020

Message design in an event-driven architecture can be quite nuanced, especially if you want to achieve any of the benefits of loose coupling that they can be associated with.

Running serverless containers in AWS Fargate, Google Cloud Run and Azure

26 January 2020

“Serverless” containers could help you to avoid the complexity of Kubernetes, but you may struggle to leverage them for anything beyond small, predictable workloads or batch jobs.

When should you write your own message endpoint library?

14 December 2019

Enterprise messaging patterns are complex beasts that often warrant a common implementation across your endpoints. Should you ever be tempted to roll your own?

Splitting up shared databases

6 October 2019

The problem of shared databases is not confined to monolithic systems. A big store of shared state is the guilty secret lurking in many a microservice architecture.

Why is loose coupling between services so important?

14 April 2019

You can’t eliminate coupling between collaborating services, but you can ensure that it doesn’t prevent you from enjoying the benefits of service-based development.

Sharing microservices across large organisations

8 March 2019

Sharing microservices across organisational boundaries is much harder than it looks. There are technical, operational, organisational and financial issues that need to be considered if you want to be successful.

Now that Kubernetes is on Azure, what is Service Fabric for?

9 February 2019

There does seem to be growing confusion over what Service Fabric is really for. Is it an orchestrator for microservices? A means of lifting and shifting legacy applications into the cloud? An application development framework?

Finding service boundaries: more than just the bounded context

6 January 2019

When you are identifying service boundaries, it’s not enough to consider the domain model alone. There are other, more pragmatic concerns to bear in mind.

Messaging anti-patterns in event-driven architecture

12 October 2018

Event-driven integration can improve the scalability, resilience and scalability of distributed applications… but this does depend on the design of your event messages…

Hosting .Net Core containers in Service Fabric

12 September 2018

Service Fabric does support container-based applications, but it still feels more like an application server than a container orchestrator.