Many companies are migrating to microservices because monolithic systems are hard to maintain, and microservice architecture by contrast is more flexible and scalable. We think it’s an important way of future-proofing your company.
Most businesses have a range of bespoke legacy applications, and even though the application may have multiple tiers (front end, server-side and database), they typically follow a monolithic architecture in that any change to the system requires a developer to build, deploy and test the entire server-side application. It is not unusual for some organisations to have applications going back 20 years, built by suppliers or staff that are no-longer around.
The problem with monolithic systems
Monolithic systems are hard to maintain – for example a small code change can take weeks of system testing and governance checks because of the potential impact they have on other systems. This creates technical debt, which has an enormous impact on a business’ ability to respond to and absorb change – killing your teams productivity and crippling innovation.
The advantages of microservices
By contrast a microservice architecture is more flexible and scalable because individual services can be built and deployed independently of one another. The microservice architecture allows companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon to be able to release incremental software changes in hours rather than the weeks or months it takes their competitors.
That is why many companies are slicing up their monolithic systems and migrating them to a microservices architecture. This approach allows them to re-use large parts of their application while transitioning to an architecture that is more agile and easier to maintain and run.
A popular way of doing this is using container software such as Docker for containerising your microservices and running them in a container manager like Kubernetes. However it is important to remember that a microservice is essentially an API which needs to be secured and managed like any other API.
APIs to support microservices
We recommend that you choose an API solution that is able to support your journey to a microservice architecture and where the licensing model makes managing your new API/microservices feasible. We also recommend that you go on this journey with your eyes open, in that you have considered all of the supporting components required to make your solution secure, scalable and reliable. To that end we have assembled all the required building blocks into our Digital Integration Platform so that you are able to focus on creating business value.
There’s alot more to say on this, so we’ve put all our thinking into this pdf download: 25 Factors To Consider When Evaluating API Products & Vendors
Over thousands of hours of research and projects delivered, we have developed our view of the top criteria to consider when evaluating API platforms. We have described these for you in this document, along with a description of our approach with our products in each case. We hope it helps you on your journey to digital maturity using APIs and cloud technology.