Enterprise Applications via Microservices
Working with an established team that know how to choose the right architecture for your project is crucial when it comes to enterprise software development.
At Powwow Technologies we take a unique approach to each and every project when building complex solutions for our clients. It is our firm belief that there is no such thing as a ‘default style’ when developing at enterprise level.
That said, in many cases there is merit in using a suite of independent services, each with their own set of processes and capabilities, that work together so that applications have powerful business driven functions. In effect what we are referring to is microservices architecture – a development style that has become possible thanks to advancing web and cloud technologies.
This pioneering development approach is unconventional in ways, as it strays from the idea of building an application as one single monolithic unit. Instead, it offers developers the freedom to create a structure with defined service boundaries.
In this piece, based on first-hand experience we share a few reasons why microservices are necessary to build scalable and reliable enterprise solutions.
Cascading Effects of small changes to a monolithic system
Making changes to a typical monolithic enterprise application can be resource heavy. Even simple changes in one area of the application can have undesirable knock-on effects in other areas of the application.
Carrying out changes in the context of an application with microservices at its core can be done in a much more controlled and predictable way. Naturally there are more explicit boundaries between the different service components in the application so the nature of the job at hand is more predictable allowing the team to focus all of their efforts on one area of the system.
Microservices allow us to build complex and large-scale applications on a component by component basis without the worry that we are contaminating our application with unknown bugs or issues as we build.
Stability and predictability is key for users and developers alike
Over time and with incremental changes to a monolithic system we found that an application can become unstable and unpredictable and developers and users tend to steer clear of it as much as possible so much so that the entire application often has to be rebuilt from scratch. In fact, in many cases the underlying architecture and infrastructure would need to change too.
Naturally this was also a cause of much frustration for our clients. The frustration was especially evident in the case of innovative clients who wanted to scale only to find that as a result of scaling they were faced with having to re-develop other areas of the application to maintain existing functionality.
Such issues have become less and less prevalent in recent years thanks to microservices – these allow for a much more fluid development process. Now with microservices, there is a clear modular boundary between the independently replaceable and upgradable services that make up an application.
Each service is scalable in its own right, independently deployable and can even be written in a different programming languages than neighbouring services that live in the same application.
Put simply microservices allow us to build scalable, predictable, secure and reliable enterprise applications to satisfy all of our clients and staff.
Gaining a competitive edge by re-purposing existing microservices
At Powwow Technologies we know from experience that with the right tools a developer can do almost anything!
A microservices enterprise application may be built to serve a particular purpose but its compartmentalised nature means that the services themselves can be re-purposed and re-configured to serve multiple purposes within the same organisation.
Imagine how useful it would be to be able to extract a component or number of components from an existing microservices application and build a whole new application to solve other needs within an organisation? We have found with a microservices architecture that this can and very often happens and invariably has a positive impact on the business.
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