Microservices in Full Stack: Building Agile, Scalable Systems

Microservices in Full Stack: Building Agile, Scalable Systems

15th Jun, 2024
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In the current rapid paced technical environment, the demand for agile and scalable systems is very  crucial. Though traditional monolithic architectures were simpler to develop, they often encountered challenges and difficulties as applications become more intricate and increase its user base. Microservices architecture has played a greater role in resolving these issues. It disintegrates the  application into smaller, self-contained services, presenting a paradigm that boosts agility, scalability,  and ease of maintenance. Let’s take a deep dive into microservices within the realm of full stack  development, investigating their role in constructing resilient systems. 

Understanding Microservices 

Microservices architecture involves decoupling an application into loosely coupled services each of  which is responsible for a specific business function. In contrast to monolithic structure, where all  components are tightly interconnected and interdependent, microservices operate autonomously. This  independence fosters a modular development approach, enabling each service to be developed,  deployed, and scaled independently. 

Key Characteristics of Microservices: 

Service Independence: Each microservice functions as a standalone entity that can be developed,  tested, deployed, and scaled independently. 

Decentralized Data Management: Microservices typically handle their own data, promoting  autonomy and minimizing the reliance on a central database. 

Technology Heterogeneity: Various services have the flexibility to utilize different technologies,  facilitating the adoption of optimal tools for particular tasks. 

Fault Isolation: All the services function independent of one another. Hence the failure of any of  the service does not have much impact on the functionality of others thus system resilience. • Continuous Delivery and Deployment: Microservices support continuous integration and  continuous deployment (CI/CD), enabling swift and frequent updates. 

Merits of Microservices: 

Modularity: Microservices are designed in modular fashion. Services are developed and  maintained independently so that it can be replaced or updated without affecting the whole  application. 

Scalability: Microservices are designed to be horizontally scalable so that more instances of  services can be added according to increased demand. It enables it to handle large volumes of  requests and to distribute load evenly. 

Resiliency: They are designed to be resilient to failures and recover quickly from error or crashes.  It is done using techniques like retrying failed requests, circuit breakers etc

Security: It is designed to authenticate or authorize requests from other services, handling sensitive  data and protection against threats like SQL injections or cross-site scripting. 

Monitoring: they are easy to monitor using tools like APM (application Performance Monitoring)  and distributed tracing. 

Demerits of Microservices: 

Complexity: As the number of microservices grows, the manageability of the application becomes  harder. 

Data Consistency: As the number of services increases, data consistency maintenance become  more complicated between microservices. 

Network Latency: The more services added and network calls increased, the network  communication between services brings more latency. It can overcome by improving  communication protocols and minimizing frequent service calls. 

Testing: Testing the microservices application is more complex than testing the monolith. Each  service must be tested individually and also tested when integrated with other services. • Deployment Overhead: When the demand grows, deploying many services will become an  overhead. The deployment can be carried out on regular basis by automating it by CI/CD pipelines. 

Best Approaches for Implementing Microservices 

Differentiate your microservices from your business functions and services. It will help you  avoid building microservices that are either too large or too small. If the former happens, then you  won’t get the advantages from utilizing the microservice architecture at all. If the latter happens to  be true, then the rise in operational costs will be orders of magnitude higher than any benefits  obtained. 

Design your services so they are loosely coupled, highly cohesive, and relate to a single  bounded context. A loosely coupled service is one that has a minimum degree of dependence on  other services. High cohesion implies that the service has a well-defined scope and has been  designed to carry out only a handful of cohesive duties. 

Communicating between services via APIs and events: When it comes to service-to-service  calls, the services should not call each other directly. Rather, create an API gateway, which deals  with authentication, request, and response as well as throttling, to regulate services. 

Recognize probable security vulnerabilities in a microservice architecture: By  implementing the DevSecOps model to provide a secure microservice environment. It should be  noted that microservices are in general more prone to attack vectors sensitive due to their  decentralized nature. 

Keep a version control strategy per service: Allow each service to have its repository and supply  it when the service is cloned. However, use this repository rarely, try not to push any changes or  commits. Fill the version control logs only with the majority of the commit, keeping it clean .

All the services we expose must have backward compatibility: Any service exposed breaks no  callers. Use verbose contract tests. The unbiased of the test is to protect ourselves from breaking  changes. 

Future of Microservices 

The trend towards microservices adoption is on the rise as organizations and leading academic institutes  for instance The NorthCap University, Gurugram increasingly acknowledge their advantages. Emerging  trends in microservices include: 

Service Mesh: Service mesh technologies like Istio provide advanced features for managing  microservices, including traffic management, security, and observability. 

Serverless Computing: Serverless architectures, where functions are executed in response to  events, can complement microservices by reducing the operational overhead of managing  infrastructure. 

AI and Machine Learning: Integrating AI and machine learning with microservices can enhance  automation and decision-making, leading to smarter and more efficient systems. 

Conclusion 

Microservices architecture represents a significant shift in how we design and build full stack  applications. By breaking down monolithic applications into smaller, independent services,  microservices offer a modular, scalable, and resilient approach to development. While the transition to  microservices introduces new challenges, the benefits in terms of agility, scalability, and maintainability  are substantial. Many big organizations like Netflix, Amazon, Uber have demonstrated the power of  microservices in handling complex, large-scale applications. By following best practices and leveraging  emerging technologies, businesses can harness the full potential of microservices to build agile, scalable  systems that meet the demands of today’s dynamic technological landscape.

Authored By

Ms. Kanika Gupta
Assistant Professor
Department of CSE
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kanikagupta-ncu
Visit for more details: https://www.ncuindia.edu/school/department-of-cse/#ug-programmes

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