Navigating Microservices Pitfalls
- Musa Nkosi
- Apr 24, 2024
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 29, 2024
Practical knowledge from first-hand experience
Microservices architecture has gained immense popularity in recent years due to its ability to address the complexities of modern software development. However, there are common mistakes that can impede the success of your microservices journey.
Throughout my journey as a Software Engineer, I've been able to delve deep into the intricacies of microservices architecture and encountered and overcome numerous challenges. After just 2 years with NNW and after hundreds of technical interviews, we've observed a common lack of awareness among candidates regarding the pitfalls of microservices architecture. Many candidates, while technically proficient, often underestimate the organisational, technical and data management challenges that come with microservices and distributed systems. This gap in understanding can lead to difficulties in implementing microservices effectively which in turn, defaults organisations to lean back to ‘what works’.
Let's dive into these pitfalls and explore how to avoid them effectively.
1. Don't create unnecessary complexity
One common mistake is using microservices for small-scale projects. Microservices shine in large, complex systems where scalability, flexibility, and independent deployment are vital. Before diving into microservices, assess your project's size and complexity to determine if it's the right fit.
Ask yourself “Should getting user information be separated into multiple microservices?”.
2. There’s no other way
Adopting microservices too early can be detrimental. It's essential to have a solid understanding of your system's requirements, domain boundaries, and potential future changes before transitioning to microservices. Rushing into it without proper planning can lead to architectural bottlenecks down the line.
Scrutinise your decisions and always test using alternative patterns.
3. Data is King
Neglecting data management in a microservices environment can lead to data inconsistency, duplication, and synchronisation issues. Establish clear data ownership, define API contracts, and implement data integration strategies to ensure seamless operations across microservices.
When you find yourself saying “How often should we sync?” or “How accurate should the data be?”, That’s when the situation smells like data havoc.
4. I’m at your service
Service design plays a pivotal role in the success of microservices. Avoid tightly coupled services, address cross-cutting concerns such as security and logging early on, and leverage domain-driven design principles to create cohesive and scalable services.
Take a look at Jason Taylor’s Clean Architecture: https://github.com/jasontaylordev/CleanArchitecture
5. Fullstack testing
Testing in a microservices architecture requires a shift towards comprehensive strategies. Traditional unit testing, integration testing, contract testing, and end-to-end testing is vital to validate individual services, their interactions and asserting the intended outcome of the entire product. Automated testing pipelines are indispensable for ensuring the reliability and robustness of microservices.
Asserting that an entire product works as intented becomes more difficult when there's more touch points. “I'm not sure about yours, but mine works :) ”.
6. Ownership
While microservices provides the ability for teams to be independent, it opens up a gap with regards to the ownership of the entire product. Teams need to foster a culture of co-ownership and not be boundary specific.
“I can login but nothing else works”, is that really valuable to the end user?
7. Operational Excellence
Operational concerns like monitoring, logging, deployment automation, and scalability are critical in a microservices ecosystem. Invest in robust monitoring tools, implement centralised logging mechanisms, automate deployment processes using CI/CD pipelines, and design for horizontal scalability to handle varying workloads efficiently.
Information is key to making sound decisions swiftly, especially during a crisis.
8. Automation Is Key
Automation is the cornerstone of successful microservices implementations. Automate testing, deployment, infrastructure provisioning, scaling, and recovery processes to reduce manual overhead, improve reliability, and accelerate time-to-market for new features and updates.
Is having a devops team the answer?
Using microservices requires careful planning, strategic decision-making, organisational readiness, and a relentless focus on best practices. By avoiding the above common mistakes and embracing a holistic approach to microservices architecture, you can unlock agility, scalability, and innovation in your software development endeavours.
Written by:
Musa Nkosi
Co-Founder & Solutions Architect
NNW Tech Solutions
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