Microservices Vs Monolithic Architecture

A large ecosystem of stand-alone services communicating with each other via network protocols implies higher security concerns, as there are significantly more of the exposed access points. It means that much more attention needs to be put into securing the application. However, while in monoliths it is necessary to secure only one service, here every microservice needs to be secured separately, creating a much higher load of work.

Plus easily built, maintained, and enhanced in the future. In general, the main negative of microservices is the complexity that any distributed system has. To run the entire application, I will create either a EAR or WAR package and deploy it on an application server . Because I have packaged everything as an EAR/WAR, my application becomes monolithic in nature, which means that even though we have separate and distinguishable components, all are packaged together. If you’re new to microservices, you can check out Cloud Academy’s Training Library.

Strengths And Weaknesses Of Monoliths

Both monoliths and microservices have their pros and cons. However, there are specific considerations you should look into before making the final decision.

For simple applications managed by small teams, a microservice approach may be overkill. Considering monolithic architecture vs microservices, most monoliths are not well modularized and their features are not easy to test .

Starter Guide To Microservices And Business Agility

An MOA has a lot of moving parts, of which any one can fail at any time. Keeping it all up and running is beyond human capability.

The fundamental idea of evolution of microservices from SOA is to reduce the dependency between the services and make them loosely coupled by above mentioned guidelines. The Microservice architecture has a significant impact on the relationship between the application and the database. Instead of sharing a single database with other microservices, each microservice has its own database. It often results in duplication of some data but having a database per microservice is essential if you want to benefit from this architecture as it ensures loose coupling. Another advantage of having a separate database per microservice is that each microservice can use the type of database best suited for its needs. For each business Service, a separate micro service is created.

Communication between services is a bit more complex since developers should use logic to connect them and deal with failures that sometimes occur. The large size of a codebase overloads IDE increases development time and slows down the start-up time. In general, the advantages of monolithic architecture imply simplicity in every aspect. To deploy the packaged application, you just need to copy a single archive to one definite directory . The process is quite straightforward, though the time may vary. Almost any big and successful app we use today was started as a monolith since this architecture works well at the initial stage of the project. Scaling of one component requires the entire application scaling, as it is an integration of small parts that can’t function independently.

The History Of Microservices

When we talk about software, monoliths are nothing but a large block of codes having multiple modules. The application and the business logic is encapsulated in a single deployable binary called a monolith. Usually, a monolith consists of a conventional three-tier architecture, namely, a database, a user interface, and a server-side application. The below diagram represents the idea of the monolithic in a nutshell. The code structure of monolithic architecture is small as compared to microservices architecture. Hence the Monolithic architecture-based web applications are easy to develop, easy to test, easy to deploy and easy to scale.

But why is this approach to architecture chasing out the traditional monolithic structure? We’re going to take a look at monolithic architecture vs microservices to find out which is better for business and why. Due to its bulky size and higher dependencies, build and deploy mechanisms in monoliths are more complicated and time-consuming.

Due to a single large codebase and tight coupling, the entire application would have to deploy for each update. With Microservices, there is a widely agreed upon, standardized architecture that is a master blueprint for organizations to follow for their Microservices Architecture. Even if companies were to adopt or implement only partial infrastructural components from the said standard it would still mean that there is uniformity in the way Microservices are implemented. The Presentation Layer, meanwhile, can exist alongside a Business Layer, either separately on a web server and application server or together on an application server. This qualifies as different physical functionalities that have similar logical concerns to the Business Tier. As a result, the regression for full monolithic service is required.

Why Microservices Instead Of Monolithic Architecture?

Kubernetes makes it so that developers and system administrators can run Linux containers as services on a network within a data center. Kubernetes also provides the capability to wire these services together to create a microservices-oriented application. To quote Kubernetes evangelist Kelsey Hightower, “the data center is the computer.” Difficult to modify — Often monolithic architectures require changes that affect more than one component within the software. That makes it difficult to change without affecting other parts of the software, most of the time, negatively.

Docker containerization is becoming the standard in the application’s deployment. The advantages Software system of containerization are flexible, lightweight, secure, scalable and portable architecture.

Monolithic Vs Microservices Architecture: Pros Of Monolithic Applications

The critical business risk is the misplaced effort that can arise due to vertical/horizontal scaling of microservices. Is your team prepared to imbibe and monolith vs microservices advantages ingest the principles of microservices? Evaluating the dimensions of the growth of your team and your product is crucial while adopting microservices.

• Because of that, microservices can also be cost effective for large applications.
• They also offer lower operating costs at scale and high reliability.
• Monolithic Architecture is optimal for small applications because of rapid development, simplicity of testing and debugging, and cost.

It’s also a complex technology that has a significant learning curve. But it can run very large applications with a high degree of reliability.

The application is deployed as a single monolithic application. For example, a Java web application consists of a single WAR file that runs on a web container such as Tomcat. A Rails application consists of a single directory hierarchy deployed using either, for example, Phusion Passenger on Apache/Nginx or JRuby on Tomcat.

The Advantages Of Microservices Prove Theyre Here To Stay

The other microservices still work and keep downtime to a minimum. When making changes to the microservice, the entire app can stay online while the changes are made. Easy to Understand — Because the architecture is broken down into simpler components, each microservice is easy to understand.