What is Microservices Architecture? Examples, Challenges, Benefits and Best Practices

Quick Go-Through: Microservices is one of those architectural patterns that has emerged from the world of domain-driven design, continuous delivery, platform and infrastructure automation, scalable systems, polyglot programming, and persistence. In this blog, you’ll explore the fundamentals of microservices architecture, including its working, characteristics, advantages, drawbacks, and future. Keep reading!

The IT industry has forced every other industry to build software for their business with modern software engineering practices and make the process easier. Accordingly, several technologies, tools, frameworks, architectural patterns, and best business practices have revolutionized over the years.

Microservices architecture patterns have stood out in several areas, like continuous design, platform, infrastructure automation, polyglot programming, domain-driven design, and persistence.

This blog will help you understand what microservices architecture all is about. Also, rather than reading it out monotonously, we will present this approach differently by telling you a story you need to know.

Let's go back to when there was no term called microservices. We will return to when a computer was large enough to fill the room. You must have seen some of the pictures on the internet, right? You would come near the machine and give all the necessary instructions to execute, and it would surely follow it.

Fast forward a little bit – to a desktop system.

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Before moving ahead, you may watch this exciting video on Microservices

We would create a new code project to build an application. Then, we would write some code to add functionalities based on the requirements. Hence, the size of the codebase for an application keeps increasing.

And developers soon realized this is not the best practice for developing an application and handling large projects. So, they started utilizing this new practice; instead of putting all the code into a single codebase, they created a small module and composed an application from these modules. These reusable modules can be used in other projects to assist other applications.

See, isn't it interesting?

After leveraging microservices, the product is ready to build and deploy the whole app on the system. Your application has a tremendous modular construct and organized functionalities. That's what we call Microservices Architecture. Plus, don’t stress, if you need help with it, you can always rely on microservices development services. First, let us understand and look at what microservices are.

What are Microservices?

Microservices design is another name for microservices. To be precise, it is an architectural style that crafts an application as a collection of services which are:

• Organized around business capabilities
• Owned by small group/tea
• Are loosely coupled

To understand it better, microservices are a cloud-native architectural approach in which a single application comprises many loosely coupled and independently deployable smaller components or services. Do you want a detailed analysis of microservices vs. API? Here's our comparing and contrasting guide to help you in the best possible ways on the same.

What is Microservices Architecture?

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts – Aristotle

Although it's a famous philosophical idea, the concept of microservices has turned it upside-down. Now let us explain microservices architecture to you.

Microservices architecture is a popular way of structuring software systems so that a single application comprises loosely coupled services. It's also known as microservices. The primary goal of microservices is to manage and maintain every tiny element of an application that works together.

Microservices architecture is a design paradigm for breaking down software systems into services that can scale up and down as per demand.

The term "micro" comes from the existing monolithic infrastructure that most businesses use, especially if they've been around for a decade or more. In contrast to a monolithic design, each component of a microservice architecture:

• A dedicated development team to ensure each service is distinct from one other
• CPU
• Runtime environment

Each service of architecture can:

• Execute its own process
• Independently communicate without relying on other microservices or the application as a whole

This capacity to separate and recombine components protects the entire system from degradation and improves agile processes, making it appealing to businesses—particularly those that still rely on monolithic infrastructures.

How Do Microservices Work?

Microservices architecture comprises small parts of components, resulting in specific APIs for each piece that is subsequently hosted on their virtual machines. Each database should be attached to the service discovery within the microservice since a shared database defines a monolithic architectural style. This use of independent databases enables the loose coupling of these services. This type of architecture is more manageable and less expensive to maintain than a single extensive API.

Terms You Should Know

When we talk about microservices, you should never forget the following terms.

Containers

The container is one type of Microservices tool and process used to create and manage microservices. A container comprises system tools, runtime, code, settings, and libraries. It actually makes a separation between different application software systems as they execute in the same environment. It can lead to having a seamless workflow on other microservices simultaneously.

For example, Linux containers (LXC) operate several isolated Linux systems on a single controllable host with the Linux kernel.

Dockers

Dockers are containerization tools that aid in managing containers, making it easier to create scalable and manageable applications. Docker microservices enable faster start time, and deployment, improved computational resource use, more effortless container management/scalability, and broader support for many operating systems.

Comparing Docker vs. Kubernetes, Docker helps create individual containers while Kubernetes helps orchestrate and manage many of them.

Microservices Architecture Examples

If we consider the microservices architecture example, Netflix has adopted Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) from monolithic. As a matter of fact, a streaming-video API of Netflix receives more than a billion calls every day from around 800 different types of devices. Hence, each API call results in about five extra back-end development service requests.

Furthermore, Amazon has made the switch to microservices as well. They receive many calls from various apps, including those that maintain the web service API and the website, which their old two-tiered architecture could not handle.

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Characteristics of Microservices

Multiple Components

The primary goal of microservices is to have a plethora of components. Without compromising the integrity of the application, each service is separately deployed, modified, and redeployed. It allows you to change a single service at a time instead of rewriting the complete application.

Simple Routing

Microservices receive requests, process them, and give valid responses. This routing mechanism is more straightforward than ESB (Enterprise Service Buses). Intelligent endpoints that process data and information rationally exist.

Decentralized

Microservices choose decentralized governance because architects seek to create solutions that others may use to solve the same challenges. Microservices also support decentralized data management, whereas monolithic systems use a single database to support several apps.

Failure Resistant

Microservices were created to deal with a failed component without bringing the entire system down. As a result, related services and features continue to operate while the failing part is fixed or replaced.

Evolutionary

Many applications begin as monolithic architectures but evolve into microservice architectures through APIs. Microservices are designed for systems that cannot predict the device types that will use a given app. They are therefore created to be evolving.

Challenges of Microservices Architecture

1. Overcoming the complexity of design

When it comes to application design, choosing the microservices strategy entails producing an app consisting of loosely coupled services that interact with one another to accomplish a specific business goal. Every microservice, but only one particular business responsibility, clarifies, encapsulates, and defines it.

2. Achieving security

When microservices are created in multi-cloud environments, the security risk is ultimately increased, and the application components lose control and visibility, leading to more vulnerable points. Furthermore, a significant worry with a microservices-based framework is data security. The fact that data in such a system is distributed makes it challenging to uphold user data confidentiality and privacy.

3. Data consistency

The traditional techniques of handling and managing data might not work with this architecture, where several services are clubbed together. The core aspect of data in microservice is that each service contains its data, increasing the chances of data duplication across several services. Plus, the redundancy issues can accelerate because of the independent data handling.

4. Operational complexity

Handling and looking after different services in micro-services-based applications need serious efforts, and the same is because of the magnitude of the services. Specialized tools are required to enable automated provisioning in a much better and more secure fashion. Once more, the operations will vary because each microservice team deploys its service using autonomous technology and a unique strategy. In such cases, the traditional application techniques become redundant and ineffective.

5. Maintenance

The maintenance element is an ongoing process. This is done to ensure that the servers run as efficiently as feasible.

Additionally, if servers are not kept, they may be at risk, and even if just one service fails, the entire system may be affected. So, to ensure the availability of the services, the developers must be on their toes to monitor and maintain them. The failure modes and situations should be understood, and a backup and auto-recovery plan should be prepared.

6. Complex team communications

It can be challenging to obtain effective team communication when working with microservices. The complexity of team communication grows along with the number of microservices. Effective communication becomes essential to surmount problems brought on by ineffective team communication.

Now that you have the list of challenges you might face, you must wonder if the transition is even worth it, right? Well, microservices have some advantages, particularly now that software is becoming more complicated and the targeted time to market is getting shorter and shorter. Numerous organizations can profit from its adoption, and the numbers have demonstrated its value.

How Microservices Benefit the Organization?

By dividing an extensive application into several smaller, independent services, microservices provide an excellent method for designing web-scale applications. They enable IT organizations to be agile and also reduce costs. Are you still wondering why microservices architecture? Read on.

Traditional businesses were done through a single autonomous unit that was in control of everything. Microservices consist of systems of applications that can be tested, developed, and deployed independently. Now let us unleash the ways microservices can help your business.

1. Productivity

All components are connected and interdependent in a giant, single application unit. This implies that any new addition or upgrade will necessitate knowledge of the application's other features.

For this, the business will need a complete team of dedicated developers that will get involved in making a single update. When such things happen on a larger scale, it will impact the delivery time and workflow of the business.

Microservices are made up of independent suits that keep the development environment streamlined. It means the small teams can simultaneously update and make the required changes to individual components. As a result of this, the developers have more autonomy, and also, they are not left waiting for the other teams to complete their work, thus increasing the aspect of productivity.

2. Scalability

By now, you must understand and know the fact that when each component of the microservices suite can be individually tested and deployed, it becomes more straightforward to scale the software in the best possible ways. One will not have to stress or worry about limitations like bottlenecks, as a microservice can be mounted at any pace. The same is because they are easy to replicate, and integrating new resources is simple.

3. Versatility

In the microservice architecture, every single application component can be made using a different programming language. When it comes to picking the best developer to work on it or the best component for a purpose, it gives businesses flexibility. This aspect of the versatility of microservices enhances the ease of deployment of the application. With this, the organizations can fill the old gaps and eliminate the risk of the application becoming obsolete with time.

Read more: What is the agile methodology, and why should you embrace it for software development.

Advantages of Microservices Architecture

Since microservices comprise independent services that work together, the approach has gained massive popularity in the developer community. However, many devices and platforms are available. Moreover, developers can manage, deploy, and scale microservices apps with container orchestration like Kubernetes implementation.

Several advantages of the microservices design are presented here.

• Even if one microservice fails, the others will continue to function
• Different languages can be used to write various code services
• Automated deployment and simplified integration
• Continuous delivery is possible thanks to the architecture
• Easy to modify for Developers. Also, it allows them to add new users to be onboarded rapidly
• The code is tailored to the needs of the company
• Easy to scale, integrate and reuse with third-party services
• Multiple servers or database centers are involved in the elements
• Supplements cloud systems
• Containers and Docker integration

Enabling DevOps with Microservices

The microservices' design is "optimized for DevOps and Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD)." It's easy to understand when considering small services that can be deployed regularly. DevOps development environments encourage close communication between development and operations teams to make business more agile. For professional help with the same, you can consider DevOps consulting services from Radixweb and get help from professionals.

But when considering the bond between microservices and DevOps, we require DevOps to make microservices architecture successful. While monolithic apps have several disadvantages, they offer the benefit of not being a sophisticated distributed system with various moving parts and web development technology stacks.

On the other hand, Microservices would not be suitable to approach without major expenditures in deployment, monitoring, and lifecycle automation, given the tremendous increase in complexity, moving pieces, and dependencies that come with them.

Microservices are not just a tool to be employed. Instead, they're part of a bigger idea that development teams must adopt a culture, knowledge, and structure to support business goals.

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Microservices Best Practices for 2025

By adhering to some of the best practices, your business will be able to create a whole microservices ecosystem that is way more effective, enhances productivity, and is free of unwanted architectural complexity.

• Planning

In this practice, ensure that you check whether the microservice architecture best fits the requirement. It should be planned and designed based on the custom business requirement. Ensure you conduct your due diligence and study your requirement carefully. It will help you to decide which architectural pattern you must follow. Most importantly, remember to perform adequate research to determine whether your program can be divided into value-added operations while keeping its core features and functionalities.

While planning and organizing, draw a clear difference between your company operations, services, and microservices. Also, do not forget to build a team around microservices. By doing this, you can ensure that the team has the knowledge and resources to create, implement, and manage a particular service.

• Designing

By now, you must be well versed in that microservices have focused responsibilities that help investigate incidents and monitor the status of each service that connects to each database. You might not consider or pay attention to the single responsibility principle while designing microservices. Once more, it ought to be applied to different software development stages, including methods, classes, modules, and services. Each level specifies that it needs to have a single responsibility component.

Furthermore, ensure you use REST APIs and events optimally and use a proper version control strategy.

• Development

Ensure you create a virtual machine (VM) for your microservices' working environment. The reason is that it allows the developers to adopt the development frameworks and initiate the development process quickly. On top of emulating software, the virtual machine also simulates the operation of a computer system and real hardware.

It will offer you a series of benefits, such as:

• Increase productivity
• Ultimate storage and computing power
• Easy provisioning
• Environment-friendly IT operations

Also, ensure that you use the right tools and frameworks, as it'll be easy to implement the microservices architecture.

• Break down the migration into steps

If you have never dealt with migration, you must realize it is not a simple job. In this case, you must break down the steps and deploy each microservice separately. You can save time coordinating with multiple teams while maintaining or upgrading efforts. Additionally, it is advised that you use a specialized infrastructure to isolate each microservice from faults and prevent a full-blown outage if one or more of them share the same resources.

• Data management

If you want to manage data, make sure to select a separate database, alter the infrastructure, and limit it to your microservice. Also, if you use a shared or monolithic database, just know it won't serve the purpose. All the microservices that use the database will be affected by any modifications you make to it.

So, ensuring that the database you choose to store your data is exclusively for your microservice is essential. Also, if any other service wants to access the data, it should be done through APIs.

• Deployment

By deploying each microservice independently, you can avoid spending much time collaborating with various teams while undertaking ongoing maintenance or upgrade tasks. Additionally, it is strongly advised to use a dedicated infrastructure when one or more microservices share resources because it helps to separate each microservice from faults.

• Maintenance

Ensure that you use an effective monitoring system. An architecture created with microservices helps you lead the massive scaling of thousands of modular services. Make sure to examine your platforms and double-check that they operate as intended and utilize resources effectively. Take proper action if any of the expectations are not met.

Monolithic Vs. Microservices Architecture: An Overview

Monolithic architecture is built as one extensive system and usually a one-code base. It is challenging to isolate services for various reasons, such as independent scaling or code maintainability, as the application becomes increasingly entangled and closely coupled.

It becomes daunting to change technology, language, or framework. The same is true because everything is interdependent and closely coupled.

On the latter, a small independent module based on business functionality is created using a microservices architecture. Each project and service in the microservice application is disconnected at the code level. So, therefore, it becomes easy to configure and deploy ultimately. Furthermore, it is simple to expand based on demand.

Let us unleash more differences between the two for better understanding.

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Microservices vs. SOA: An Overview

When we talk about the difference between Microservices vs. SOA, they are unique but similar in some cases. They come together at the intersection of SOA, combining agile development and IT operations, known as DevOps and containerization.

On the other hand, microservices extend beyond the existing architecture. Microservices are created by combining fast-moving software development with SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) principles and containers.

Microservices are not the same as SOA. Albeit, these two architectural styles share a common history and characteristics. The actual goal of creating SOA was to be technology-agnostic. However, SOA has become heavily reliant on standards and vendors over time.

Along with SOAP and enterprise service buses, vendors promoted SOA. (ESBs). Microservices are almost a reaction against traditional vendor-driven SOA, even though they reaffirm many SOA concepts. Today's lightweight microservices are the opposite of the heavy SOA architecture. Microservices are adamantly opposed to ESBs.

The Future of Microservice Architecture

Regardless of whether microservice architecture becomes the favored development approach in the future or not, it has significant advantages for creating and deploying enterprise applications.

Additionally, many organizations and developers have been utilizing a strategy to leverage APIs that could be defined as microservices without ever using the term or even labeling their r practice as SOA.

Microservices architecture is the future because it offers several advantages over monolithic architectures, including increased modularity, scalability, and maintainability. They are considered more suitable for CI/CD software, essential in today's fast-paced world.

Talking about fast, microservices are quick to build and provide less market time. They also enable developers to focus on one item at a time rather than attempting to integrate everything into a single monolithic application.

As businesses move from monolithic to microservices, the developers must learn new skills and technologies. But it is worth it because the benefits of this architecture are too bold and significant to ignore.

Microservices Pay Off, When Using EffectivelyThe IT industry can use microservices to create flexible, scalable web-scale applications. They achieve this by segmenting a large application into numerous tiny independent services. This technique allows for better agility since modifications and development occur more quickly.Assume you can agree on a large number of standardized definitions. In that case, the next stage will likely be agents, tiny programs coordinating microservices from many suppliers to fulfill specific goals.Considering the increasing complexity and communication demands of SaaS apps, wearables, and the Internet of Things, we can predict that microservice architecture will have a bright future.And to make your organization future-ready with microservices, you need a reliable software development company who can understand your needs and help you with the right solution. At Radixweb, our experienced developers use various API management platforms to handle your microservices and API development needs.So, what are you waiting for? Reach out to us and share your requirements.