Monolith and microservices are both architectural patterns on which businesses can deploy their web-based server-side applications. Monolith is a standard way of deploying applications, which merges all the components in a single package. On the other hand, the later architecture lets you isolate services and components by deploying them individually and independently.
The debate for choosing monolith or microservices has grown to become profound with time. However, it is now the best time to shift from the standard monolith to microservices; in fact, it has become evident now.
Why shift from the monolith to microservices?
Despite the benefits of monolith architecture, including ease of management and fewer requirements of developers, it has several challenges. For instance, the biggest challenge facing the monolith architecture is the lack of flexibility and scalability.
Since all the services and components of the monolith architecture share memory, it becomes less scalable. Another major drawback is that if the developer team wants to update a single service, they will have to update the entire package. However, microservices architecture can solve all these problems while providing additional benefits.
Microservices allows you to make smaller and quicker deployments in this fast-paced world. By isolating all the services and packages, you can learn, add, alter, and delete codes within no time. This isolation feature of microservices also helps enhance fault tolerance and ease of understanding.
Why is now a great time to shift from the monolith to microservices architectural pattern?
Both monolith and microservices have their pros and cons, letting the debate grow profoundly. However, the technical advancements and changing consumer demand has led to some factors screaming out in favor of microservices architecture.
The changing demands of customers
Customers’ demands are changing almost every day, making scalability a necessity to survive in the long-run. They now demand a faster turnaround time, regardless of the complexity of the services you offer. Also, they have become less tolerant of fault. Even if your system is down for a few minutes, your customers will already be looking for alternatives. Hence, it is evident that you would be looking for an option to scale your services and business, and microservices provide you with a solution.
The need for Application Modernization?
Gartner describes Application Modernization1 as “the migration of legacy to new applications or platforms, including integrating new functionality to provide the latest functions to the business.” While some businesses are still using legacy systems, many have already modernized them according to the changing time and needs. Application Modernization’s market size was valued at USD 11.4 billion in 20202 and is expected to reach USD 24.8 billion by 2025.
The reason behind the success and growth of Application Modernization is again because of the benefits of microservices. Most of the legacy systems are based on the standard monolith architecture. This, again, makes them challenging and costly to add new features and scale.
With Application Modernizing, you can shift to microservices architecture, thereby leveraging all the benefits it has to provide. Also, legacy systems are old and vulnerable to attacks, but you cannot merely lift and refactor them at once. Hence, it is also beneficial to shift to microservices architecture. With microservices architecture, you can break the legacy system into different components and couple them loosely to make the modernization easier.
The constant evolution of cloud services
Data around us is growing exponentially. Over 2.5 quintillion bytes of data3 is generated every day. Hence, it is evident that businesses prefer cloud services to store and manage such a large volume of data. Also, you can choose from different pricing plans, which makes cloud services a budget-friendly option.
Similar to Application Modernization, using microservices architecture on the cloud is beneficial too. Firstly, all the cloud hosting providers encourage using it due to the ease of handling different services and components. Secondly, it helps enhance the features of the cloud, such as allowing quicker and safer deployments. On top of it all, microservices with cloud offer a consistent development experience and reduce costs by optimizing the cloud usage.
How to refactor a monolith to microservices?
It is certain the shifting from monolith to microservices will get you numerous benefits. But it does not mean that you have to jump on the bandwagon quickly. It would be best if you took it slow, step by step, to make the refactoring process seamless.
The best way to refactor a monolith to microservices is by taking a single component from the monolith and deploying it to microservices. For instance, if you are a courier delivering agency, here’s how you can separate the delivery management component from the rest of the monolith.
- Review and study the entire code
- Split the code for delivery management, making it loosely coupled from the rest within the monolith
- Create a separate database for the delivery management component on microservices
- Copy and paste the code from the delivery management component from the monolith to microservices
- Make the necessary changes and scale it however you want in the microservices
- Start using the standalone delivery management component from the microservices
- Remove the old loosely coupled delivery management component from the monolith
Follow the process for all the components to easily refactor from monolith to microservices and quickly modernize your legacy applications on the cloud.
While legacy systems and monolith architecture have their advantages, they are slowly but steadily becoming obsolete. Hence, shifting from monolith to microservices on the cloud has become evident. It is now the time to make a move before it becomes too late and your competitor gets an edge in the fierce competition.
Talk to Modernization experts today!
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