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Updated: Oct 2, 2024
Getting Started: A Beginner's Guide to Building Microservices with Node.js
Verified Expert in Engineering
Vivek works as a Software Maestro with 11 years of professional experience. He leverages a wide range of next-gen technologies, including Node Js, React Js, PgSQl, and a lot more.
Quick Summary: Node.js microservices provide a modern and adaptable approach to application development that can handle unexpected challenges and changes. In fact, microservices can be developed using multiple programming languages for various services, depending on your choice. But in this article, we will focus on developing microservices with NodeJS. We will also explain what microservices is and how to build them with NodeJS for efficient applications.
As a JavaScript developer, when you plan to build real-world applications, what do you wish for the most?
The preferred technology, right?
Scalable and robust architecture? That’s correct too.
What about if we say – fewer development challenges? Isn’t that the most crucial parameter and the favored thing you would want?
We know, with the surging size of the JavaScript application, the challenges that you face also increase simultaneously. And that’s why Microservices Architecture is introduced to solve this issue. Utilizing microservices has become the most preferred practice in the software development industry.
Applications that are scalable, resilient, and maintainable can be created using the powerful architectural style of microservices. Node.js is a suitable platform for developing microservices, thanks to its efficient and lightweight nature, and an active package ecosystem.
We will learn to develop robust, scalable and efficient microservices for server-side programming in Node.js using this guide. Stay ahead in this competition by embracing Node.js development services for microservices.
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Introduction
Developing software applications is not only about fulfilling the requirements of clients and integrating essential features. With the large complex application size, there are some challenges and roadblocks developers have to face, including code maintenance, bug fixing, new feature implementation, and managing user roles.
However, these are essential issues at scale, and developers are only left with adapting other architecture in order to avoid them.
Generally, monolithic architecture-based applications encounter these problems. The entire system is affected if any particular component in a monolithic system develops an issue. And that’s when distributed systems come to the rescue to overcome the challenges developers have faced. The complexity can easily be resolved when JavaScript applications are built on microservices, with the Node.js ecosystem.
A distributed application comprises numerous loosely coupled microservices that collaborate to satisfy the user's demands. Microservices is one type of distributed system which provides a solution to this issue, empowering developers to build application components independently. With the adoption of microservices, the occurrence of a fault in one component no longer compromises the overall functionality of the software application.
“Microservices are fine-grained SOA components. They are lightweight services with a narrow focus.” - Ajay Ojha, Chief Architect at Radixweb
Understanding Microservices Architecture
Microservices are a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) style where the application structure comprises interconnected services. The application developed using the microservices architecture consists of lightweight protocols.
In a nutshell, microservices is a software architecture comprising single, manageable services. It’s a software architecture approach that breaks down complex applications into independent components. These individual components interact with each other through well-defined APIs to provide efficient functionality.
Each microservice has a loosely linked architecture aiming to simplify the process of creating and maintaining applications. Microservices provide rapid service development, testing, and deployment, enabling independent operation of each service.
That’s why microservices are becoming more popular in software application development. Every software engineer is on the verge of adopting microservices architecture to improve the software quality they build.
Monolithic vs Microservices in Node.js
In simple terms, Monolithic architecture is responsible for executing all parts and services of an application. Monolithic architecture is the opposite of microservices, as it has only one service but many other modules in it.
The responsibility of the monolithic architecture is to deploy all modules together. However, it will consume your time to deploy the application. For instance, if we make some changes in one module – User Module, we will have to pack all of the modules to deploy the entire service.
That’s the reason monolithic architecture software is time-consuming and complex to modify and deploy. Every large organization is considering monolithic to microservices migration.
When it comes to following microservices architecture and developing a complex application, Node.js becomes the primary choice for every developer and business owner. NodeJS is an open-source, cross-platform runtime environment that helps developers to run JavaScript on the server-side.
Additionally, Node.js architecture follows an event-driven approach, which helps the application handle asynchronous I/O and manage huge traffic.
Node.js microservices is what you need to build dynamic, complex, and real-time applications.
Microservices in the Real World
While talking about what is microservices architecture, these are small application components that are specialized in performing one task and work collaboratively to achieve a higher-level task.
Allow us to give you a real-world example. Forget about software for some time here.
Just understand how an organization works. When you apply for a job in a software development company, you apply for the given position: software engineer, software architecture, project manager, or system administrator.
We can consider these positions as a specialization. So, if you work in a company as a software engineer, you are responsible for developing the entire software until it deploys. Albeit you have no prior experience dealing with clients, won’t affect your performance. Because that’s not the area of expertise you possess. Also, that will hardly add any value to your day-to-day work.
This is how microservices function. It’s an autonomous unit of work that can perform one task without interrupting other systems, similar to what a job position is to a company. That’s why many big brands like Netflix, PayPal, and Spotify have implemented microservices-oriented architecture using Node.js development.
- Netflix: Netflix is one of the most popular streaming platforms. It has built an entire ecosystem of applications that collaborate in order to provide a reliable and scalable streaming system used across the globe.
- Spotify: The world's leading music streaming service provider has implemented microservices. Every single widget of the application (which is a website exposed as a desktop app using Chromium Embedded Framework) is a different microservice that can be updated Individually.
“Specialization is often the key to improving efficiency. Doing one thing and doing it right is one of the mantras of software development.” - Ajay Ojha, Chief Architect at Radixweb
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Reasons for Building Microservices with Node.js
When you choose Node.js for app development at a large scale, it comes with many JavaScript modules, making your database feature rich. Therefore, software architects prefer NodeJS to develop JSON API-based applications, live streaming applications, single-page applications, I/O bound applications, and data-intensive real-time applications.
Advantages of Microservices in Node.js
Let’s understand some of the major benefits of using Node.js microservices architecture for Node.js backend development services.
- Single Threaded: Since Node.js follows a single-threaded approach, the server leverages a non-blocking methodology using event looping.
- Buffer Less: Data is simply released in chunks; there is no buffering.
- Asynchronous: The Node.js libraries are non-blocking, non-synchronous, and do not wait for the previous API's return data before moving on to the next API.
- Highly scalable: Servers can easily manage all incoming requests.
- Event-driven: "Events of Node.js" is a notification system that enables the application server to capture the result of the prior API call.
- Extremely Quick: Codes are executed swiftly on the V8 JavaScript Engine, even in the latest v11.8 version in Node.js 21.
- Licensed: A software license gives the program permission to run.
Popular Microservices Node.js Frameworks
Here are some of the popular frameworks for building microservices in Node.js:
Express.js: The most popular, flexible Node.js framework that can handle HTTP requests and responses. Express.js is customizable and easy to configure.
Nest.js: Another Node.js microservices framework, which provides numerous built-in features, like routing and caching.
Hapi.js: This framework is simple and scalable with a modular architecture. It helps you develop microservices in Node.js with built-in support for authentication and validation.
LoopBack: It enables you to provide authentication, authorization, and data persistence with its model-driven approach. It is the right Node.js framework for developing microservices and APIs.
Feathers: It’s primarily used to build a real-time app and REST APIs.
“Keeping a low level of coupling allows a software component to be converted into a microservice with little to no effort.” - Vivek Chavda, Sr Technical Lead at Radixweb
Building Microservices with Node JS
If you are planning to build microservices with Node.js, it’s essential to have a basic understanding of the JavaScript programming language. The steps for creating Node.js microservices represent how working apps in our hyperconnected world can perform incredibly well when built with a functional combination of many, unique APIs.
Let's create a microservice for integrating external APIs in Node.js to create a microservice to better comprehend the process. The microservice will get better as the development goes along to make it more responsive and economical.
Step 1: Determine the Business Requirements
Before developing microservices using Node.js, the first and foremost thing you have to do is understand the requirements of your services. Depending on their project needs, you must choose the technologies that help you build microservices.
Here, we are going to demonstrate an example that will calculate the distance between two ZIP codes. The first thing we will do is to identify two ZIP codes and then come up with the distance between them in miles.
With the utilization of validation techniques, we will also configure external API calls and quickly duplicate calls.
We will have to follow a cost-effective approach here and put the internal cache into practice.
Step 2: Initialization
To build microservices, the first thing you have to do is to install Node.js on your system. You can download the latest version – Node.js 20, from its official website.
Here we are going to use NPM (Node Package Manager) to load the dependencies, execute the services, and launch the project.
Follow these steps to initialize the project:
- Open Node.js
- Go to the root folder
- Run the command:
$ npm init
Once we execute the command, it will lead us to the package.json file creation. Also, it will establish the foundation of our project. You can choose from the defaults and update later on.
However, we will be using Express.js – a backend framework for Node.js. And Request – the package that will help you communicate with the external API.
If we talk about Express and Request packages, the Express package allows microservices to set up a connection with third-party, web-based APIs. The Express package acts as a structure for Node applications to support the Node.js foundation of microservices.
Write the below-given commands to add these packages to package.json file:
$ npm install express request- At the end of the command, add:
--save - Execute the command
Once you execute npm init command, you will see a structure of files and folders for creating microservices.
Here, server.js is the primary file. API support files are located in the api folder.
Third-party API connection logic is stored in the service folder.
Other folders created include node_modules, package-lock.json, and package.json. However, the dependencies of Express and Request packages are stored in node_modules.
Now, you can start coding for microservices.
Step 3: Setting Up the Server
The first step in the coding process is creating a server to identify and accept requests. The server.js file, which is the project's main file, must be opened in order to start this process.
The server.js file's source code is as follows:
var express = require('express');
var app = express();
var port =process.env.PORT || 3000;
var routes = require('./api/routes'); routes(app);
app.listen(port,function(){ console.log('Server started on port: ' + port); });
Now the next step is to identify routes for response transmission. The server created earlier assigns routes to ensure all requests are processed.
“As a general rule, a microservice should be small enough to be completely rewritten in a sprint.”
Step 4: Analyzing Routes
The next thing we have to do is analyze the server's routes. We will also assign each one to target in the controller object, which we will create in the next step.
Two endpoints for receiving and sending requests will establish the routes. For this project, we will use the ZIP codes as the two parameters to mark the paths for the distance endpoints.
'use strict';
var controller = require('./controller');
module.exports = function(app) {
app.route('/about')
.get(controller.about);
app.route('/distance/:zipcode1/:zipcode2')
.get(controller.get_distance);
};
The 'use strict' directive is used in the most recent iterations of JavaScript. The purpose of this directive is to create secure coding practices. Module.exports is used to validate internal module functions.
You can use defined functions as they are available in another file via the routes module. The Express package's routes can be specified in the routes module, which can be imported from server.js.
At this stage of the process, the app includes two routes. The first route transmits the GET requests on / about the end point. The about function in the controller handles these requests.
GET requests are sent on the /distance endpoint via the second route that was introduced to the app. The get_distance function in the controller handles these requests.
The two parameters listed here are zipcode1 and zipcode2, respectively.
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Step 5: Create Controller Logic
The controller logic of microservices was implemented to introduce new functions. A controller object was developed based on the user actions and intentions, creating communication with the new or updated data for processing objects.
We are creating a controller object with two properties for our project. These two properties serve as management tools for the routes module's requests.
'use strict';
var properties = required('../package.json');
var distance = require('../service/distance');
var controllers = {
about: function(req,res){
var aboutInfo = { name:properties.name, version: properties.version }
res.json(aboutInfo);
},
get_distance: function(req, res){
distance.find(req, res, function(err,dist){
if(err) res.send(err); res.json(dist);
});
},
};
module.exports = controllers;
Using the mentioned code, we create properties controller objects. To enable process objects to import and utilize the file’s information content, it refers to the package.json file.
Here, about and get_distance are two separate sections of our code. Requests and response objects are delivered to the first functionality. When the about functionality is used, the package.json file returns a brand-new object.
The get_distance functionality is designed to maintain coordination between the find function and the distance module. It receives error and distance objects and, returns the response object if an error is encountered.
Step 6: Establishing the External API Call
Our next task is to design an external API call to handle calls to a third-party API after developing controller logic.
ZipCodeAPI.com offers the distance API that we're going to use without charge.
In our project, we've set an expired test key as the default key for outgoing calls.
Let’s explore the code here:
var request = require('request');
const apiKey = process.env.ZIPCODE_API_KEY || "hkCt1nW1wF1rppaEmoor7T9G4ta7R5wFSu8l1dokNz8y53gGZHDneWWVosbEYirC";
const zipCodeURL = 'https://www.zipcodeapi.com/rest/';
var distance = {
find: function(req, res, next) {
request(zipCodeURL + apiKey
+ '/distance.json/' + req.params.zipcode1 + '/'
+ req.params.zipcode2 + '/mile',
function (error, response, body) {
if (!error && response.statusCode == 200) {
response = JSON.parse(body);
res.send(response);
} else {
console.log(response.statusCode + response.body);
res.send({distance: -1});
}
});
}
};
module.exports = distance;
The above code will execute the Request package for the external HTTP request. This code takes a request, a response, and the next object to find as parameters.
The request object accepts the server’s URL out of these three. Then callback function handles the response.
The status of the response will be HTTP Status code 200 if there are any issues. Then, the body of the response resolves into elements and returns, improving response handling effectiveness.
Step 7: Execution
Bang on! Now your application is ready to execute. There is an export of distant objects. The controller can represent functions and concrete instances of the external API calls as required.
However, you must ensure there are no typos in the code to execute the microservices.
“The general rule in Node.js apps is to never block the thread. If you find yourself blocking the thread, you might need to rethink how to avoid it.”
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Microservices Challenges in Node.js
Stepping into the world of development is not as easy as you think. There are a lot of challenges you need to face while developing microservices with Node.js.
As a renowned Node.js backend development company, we have figured out some of the major challenges every developer faces while developing JavaScript microservices with Node.js.
Process CPU-bound Tasks Poorly
Since Node.js follows a single-threaded, it cannot perform CPU-intensive tasks. Hence, the application encounters performance bottlenecks as the entire CPU bandwidth gets used for processing large requests. Multithreading was added as an experimental feature in the Node.js 10.5.0 upgrade to address this problem.
Poor NPM Tools
Apart from considering core NPM tools, the vast majority of Node.js platform tools are not thoroughly tested or documented. The registries are arranged inappropriately. In addition, the open-source ecosystem is inadequately supervised by Joyent, the creators of Node.js.
Limited Team of Node.js Developers
When there are a vast number of technologies – frameworks, tools, languages, and platforms available in the market, as compared to them, you will find a shallow amount of Node JS developers. The growing demand for NodeJS continues to not be matched due to developers' lack of professional experience.
Avail the Benefits of NodeJS Microservices with RadixwebDespite having challenges and drawbacks, Node.js has, it’s still the most popular runtime environment to build real-time, complex applications and JavaScript microservices. Here, the RESTful APIs help the architecture to process the data and maintain the code while deploying each microservices.In fact, when you develop microservices with Node.js and Express, it eventually enables you to build scalable and maintainable applications that can adapt to evolving business requirements. Therefore, we have seen and will see Node.js actively used in developing microservices for enterprise software development.Hence, it’s the right time to follow the best practices and steps we demonstrated in this guide; and leverage the capabilities of NodeJS to embark on your JavaScript microservices journey.We hope your intention of reading this tutorial or blog has quenched your thirst and justified the purpose. If you plan to avail the benefits of NodeJS microservices, you can hire NodeJS developers from Radixweb with various engagement models. Don’t wait until you lose your spot out of your competitors. Connect with our experts now!
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About the Author
Vivek is a highly skilled Software Maestro with 11 years of experience in building innovative and scalable solutions. With a strong foothold on Node.js, React.js, PHP & frameworks, PgSQL, Mysql, and Redis, Vivek consistently delivers high-quality software solutions. His meticulous attention to detail and ability to think outside the box enables him to tackle complex technical challenges and provide effective solutions.
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