The document provides an overview of microservices and a microservices pattern language. It discusses how the monolithic architecture can become difficult to manage for large applications. Microservices help address this issue by decomposing applications into smaller, independent services. However, microservices also introduce new complexities in developing and operating distributed systems. The microservices pattern language provides proven solutions to common problems when architecting microservice applications. It covers patterns for service decomposition, communication, data consistency, deployment, and other concerns. The pattern language guides architectural decisions for microservice applications.

1. @crichardson
A pattern language for
microservices
Chris Richardson
Founder of Eventuate.io
Founder of the original CloudFoundry.com
Author of POJOs in Action
@crichardson
chris@chrisrichardson.net
http://learnmicroservices.io
Copyright © 2017. Chris Richardson Consulting, Inc. All rights reserved

2. @crichardson
Presentation goal
Overview of the microservice
architecture pattern language
and
how to use it to architect an
application

3. @crichardson
About Chris

4. @crichardson
About Chris
Consultant and trainer
focusing on modern
application architectures
including microservices
(http://www.chrisrichardson.net/)

5. @crichardson
About Chris
Founder of a startup that is creating
an open-source/SaaS platform
that simplifies the development of
transactional microservices
(http://eventuate.io)

6. @crichardson
About Chris
http://learnmicroservices.io

7. @crichardson
Agenda
Why microservices?
Benefits of the microservice architecture
Microservices != silver bullet
The microservice pattern language
Applying the microservice pattern language

8. @crichardson
Modern software development: moving
fast and not breaking things!
46x
440x
24x
5x lower
Amazon: ~0.001%
Netflix: 16 minutes

9. @crichardson
How to move fast and not
break things?
Architecture:
Process:
Small,
autonomous teams
????
DevOps/Continuous delivery/deployment
Organization:

10. @crichardson
The monolithic architecture
Tomcat
Browser
WAR
SQL
database
HTML
REST/JSON
Client
App
Simple to ….
Develop
Test
Deploy
Scale
Catalog
Module
Reviews
Module
Orders
Module
StoreFront UI
Module

11. @crichardson
But successful
applications keep
growing
….

12. @crichardson
… and modularity breaks down…
http://www.laputan.org/mud/
“Shantytowns
are squalid,
sprawling
slums.”

13. @crichardson
Monolithic hell
Agile development and
deployment
becomes impossible
By John Martin, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3353638

14. @crichardson
Monolithic hell:
Technology stack becomes
increasingly obsolete
BUT a rewrite is not feasible

15. The microservice architecture is an
architectural style that
structures an application as a
set of loosely coupled, services
organized around business
capabilities

16. @crichardson
The Microservice architecture
tackles complexity through
modularization
Improved scalability is secondary
*

17. @crichardson
Microservice architecture
Browser
Mobile
Device
Content
Router
API
Gateway
Catalog
Service
Review
Service
Order
Service
…
Service
Catalog
Database
Review
Database
Order
Database
…
Database
HTTP
/HTML
REST
REST
Browse &
Search WebApp
Product Detail
WebApp
….

18. @crichardson
Agenda
Why microservices?
Benefits of the microservice architecture
Microservices != silver bullet
The microservice pattern language
Applying the microservice pattern language

19. @crichardson
Microservices enable
continuous delivery/deployment
Process:
Continuous delivery/deployment
Organization:
Small, agile, autonomous,
cross functional teams
Architecture:
Microservice architecture
Enables
Enables
Enables
Successful
Software
Development
Services
=
testability
and
deployability
Teams own services

20. @crichardson
Smaller, simpler applications
Easier to understand, develop and test
Less jar/classpath hell - who needs OSGI?
Faster to build, test and deploy
Reduced startup time - improves MTTR

21. Scales development: develop, deploy
and scale each service independently
Small, autonomous teams
Clearly defined
responsibilities
Catalog
Service
Review
Service
Order
Service
…
Service
Catalog
Team
Review
Team
Order
Team
…
Team
Responsible
for

22. @crichardson
Easier to scale

23. @crichardson
Improves fault isolation

24. @crichardson
Easily evolve your technology
stack
... and fail safely

25. @crichardson
Agenda
Why microservices?
Benefits of the microservice architecture
Microservices != silver bullet
The microservice pattern language
Applying the microservice pattern language

26. @crichardson
No silver bullets
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Brooks

27. @crichardson
Complexity
http://highscalability.com/blog/2014/4/8/microservices-not-a-free-lunch.html

28. @crichardson
Complexity of developing a
distributed system

29. @crichardson
Multiple databases
&
Transaction management
Must use event-driven
eventual consistency

30. @crichardson
Complexity of testing a
distributed system

31. @crichardson
Complexity of deploying and
operating a distributed system
You need a lot of
automation: VM/container
orchestration or PaaS

32. @crichardson
Developing and deploying features that
span multiple services requires careful
coordination

33. @crichardson
Agenda
Why microservices?
Benefits of the microservice architecture
Microservices != silver bullet
The microservice pattern language
Applying the microservice pattern language

34. @crichardson
Are microservices a good fit
for my application?

35. @crichardson
When using microservices:
How to decompose an application into services?
How to deploy an application’s services?
How to handle cross cutting concerns?
Which communication mechanisms to use?
How do external clients communicate with the services?
How does a client discover the network location of a service instance?
How to prevent a network or service failure from cascading to other services?
How to maintain data consistency and implement queries?
How to make testing easier?
How to understand the behavior of an application and troubleshoot problems?
How to implement a UI screen or page that displays data from multiple services?

36. @crichardson
Microservice pattern language
=
collection of patterns
that solve these
architecture, design, development and
operational problems

37. @crichardson
What’s a pattern?
Reusable solution
to a problem
occurring
in a particular context

38. @crichardson
The structure of a pattern
encourages objectivity
Resulting context
The situationName
Context
Problem
Related patterns
The issues that
must be addressed
Forces
Solution Benefits
Drawbacks
IssuesPatterns that are alternative
solutions
Patterns that address the issues

39. @crichardson
Microservice architecture pattern
Context Developing large, complex architecture
Problem What’s the runtime architecture?
Benefits Faster development
Easy adopt new technologies
Drawbacks Complexity of a distributed system
Issues Decomposition
Distributed system issues: IPC, discovery, …
Alternative patterns Monolithic architecture
Successor patterns Service Registry, API Gateway, …

40. @crichardsonMicroservice patterns
Communication patterns
Core
Cross-cutting concerns Security
Deployment
Maintaining data consistency
Database architecture
External API
Reliability
Discovery
Communication style
Testing
Observability
UI
Decomposition
API gateway
Client-side discovery
Server-side
discovery
Service registry
Self registration
3rd party registration
Multiple Services
per host
Single Service per
Host
Service-per-
Container
Service-per-VM
Messaging
Remote Procedure
Invocation
Database per
Service
Event-driven
architectureShared
database
Microservice
Chassis
Backend for front end
Event
sourcing
Transaction
log tailing
Database
triggers
Application
events
Monolithic
architecture
Microservice
architecture
CQRS
Motivating
Pattern
Solution
Pattern
Solution A Solution B
General Specific
Serverless
deployment
Circuit BreakerAccess Token
Domain-specific
Externalized
configuration
Service Integration
Contract Test
Service
Component Test
Exception
tracking
Distributed
tracing
Audit logging
Application
metrics
Log
aggregation
Health check
API
Service deployment
platform
Server-side page
fragment
composition
Client-side UI
composition
Decompose by
business capability
Decompose by
subdomain
Application patterns
Infrastructure patterns
Application Infrastructure patterns
Microservices pattern language: http://microservices.io

41. @crichardson
Agenda
Why microservices?
Benefits of the microservice architecture
Microservices != silver bullet
The microservice pattern language
Applying the microservice pattern language

42. @crichardson
The pattern language guides you
when developing an architecture
What architectural decisions you must make
For each decision:
Available options
Trade-offs of each option

43. @crichardson
Key patterns

44. Issue: What’s the deployment
architecture?
Forces
Maintainability
Deployability
Testability
Extensibility
…
Monolithic
architecture
Microservice
architecture
Single deployable/
executable OR
Tightly coupled services
Multiple loosely coupled
services

45. Issue: How to decompose an
application into services?
Forces
Stability
Cohesive
Loosely coupled
Not too large
Decompose by
business capability
Decompose by
subdomain
Organize around
business capabilities
Organize around DDD
subdomains

46. @crichardson
Issue: how to maintain data
consistency?
Event-driven
architecture
Event
sourcing
Transaction
log tailing
Database
triggers
Application
events
Context
• Each service has its own
database
• Data is private to a service
Forces
Transactional data consistency
must be maintained across
multiple services
2PC is not an option

47. @crichardson
Issue: how to perform
queries?
CQRS
Context
Each service has its own
database
Forces
Queries must join data
from multiple services
Data is private to a service
Maintain query views by
subscribing to events

48. @crichardson
Issue: How do services
communicate?
Messaging
Remote Procedure
Invocation
Domain-specific
Forces
Services must
communicate
Usually processes on
different machines
…

49. @crichardson
The rest are generic technical
architecture patterns
=
Undifferentiated heavy lifting!

50. @crichardson
Issue: How to handle cross
cutting concerns?
Microservice
Chassis
Forces
Every service must
implement logging;
externalize configuration;
health check endpoint;
metrics; …

51. Issue: How to deploy an
application’s services?
Multiple Services
per host
Single Service per
Host
Service-per-
Container
Service-per-VM
Serverless
deployment
Service deployment
platform
Forces
Multiple languages
Isolated
Constrained
Monitor-able
Reliable
Efficient

52. @crichardson
Issue: How to discover a service
instance’s network location?
Client-side discovery
Server-side
discovery
Service registry
Self registration
3rd party registration
Forces
Client needs IP address of
service instance
Dynamic IP addresses
Dynamically provisioned
instances

53. @crichardson
Issue: how to monitor the
behavior of your application?
Exception
tracking
Distributed
tracing
Audit logging
Application
metrics
Log
aggregation
Health check
API

54. @crichardson
Summary
The monolithic architecture is a good choice for small/simple
applications
Use the microservice architecture for large/complex
applications
Microservice architecture != silver bullet
Use the microservice architecture pattern language to guide
your decision making

55. @crichardson
@crichardson chris@chrisrichardson.net
http://learnmicroservices.io
Thank you!