The Monolithic Applicatiion Architecture
When all the project functionalities exist in a single codebase, that application is known as a monolithic application.
The Microservices Architecture
Microservices is an architectural development style in which the application is composed of smaller services that handle small portions of the functionality. The microsercices communicate with each other.
The Advanges of The Monolithic Application Architecture
Apart from the many disadvantages, we should be aware of more than a few advantages. The monolithic architecture is not going to disappear. There are cases in which it would be the preferred one.
- The development of a monolithic application is significantly simpler than the development of microservices.
- The deployment of a monolithic application is usually simpler than the deployment of multiple microservices.
The Disadvantages of The Monolithic Application Architecture
There are many disadvantages when implementing the monolithic application architecture, including the following ones.
- The codebase becomes too large and difficult to manage.
- We need to redeploy the whole application whenever we implement a new feature or fix a bug.
- With time, the application becomes bigger, and as a result, its start-up and deployment time increase.
- When new developers join the team, the bigger the mono application is, the more difficult it is to understand the logic of the entire application.
- When a specific part of the monolithic application faces a large load or traffic, we need to deploy the entire application on multiple servers. Doing so is not simple, and in some cases, it is impossible.
- Adopting new technologies well suited for a specific functionality is not simple when having a monolithic application.
- When having a single bug in a specific module of our monolithic application most likely that the entire application won’t work.
The Advantages of The Microservices Architecture
There are many advantages when implementing the microservices application architecture, including the following ones:
- When implementing the microservices architecture, we get multiple small services. The management of every one of them is relatively simpler.
- When updating one of the services, we don’t need to redeploy the entire application, we just need to redeploy the specific service that was updated. The microservices are self-contained, and therefore, we deploy them independently.
- The start-up and deployment of each service are relatively small.
- When new developers join the team, it is much simpler for them to catch up. They need to understand the specific services they are responsible for.
- When a specific microservice faces a large load, it would be sufficient to scale out that specific microservice only. The microservices support for horizontal scaling is much better.
- Each service can be developed using different technologies. This allows us to use the best technology for every service.
- When a specific service goes down due to a bug or another reason, that doesn’t affect the other microservices.
The Disadvantaged of The Microservices Architecture
The microservices architecture is not the preferred option in all cases. It has some disadvantaged we better be aware of.
- The microservices are relatively costly in network usage as they need to interact with each other.
- The microservices are less secure relative to monolithic applications. The inter-services communication over the network might create security holes.
- The debugging of microservices might be difficult. The control flows over many microservices, and pointing out why and where the error happened might be difficult.
- The deployment of all the microservices is more complex (in total) compared with the deployment of one single monolithic application.
The implementation of the microservices architecture includes the use of various design patterns that reflect best practices that were learned over the years. We continuously explore this topic and develop relevant training material. We would happily provide your company with tailored training on this topic while implementing the Extreme Blended methodology. We strongly recommend checking out our seminars about microservices. We would be very glad to explore the possibilities to provide you with a strategic and a professional consulting service that will assist you with taking the best decisions for your project.
