Traditionally, software applications were monolithic products that satisfied a single requirement or demand.
In the fast-paced app development environment of today, in which there is more demand than ever for a wide range of capabilities and functionality from software, the monolithic approach of the past is left behind in favor of a microservices architecture that is easy to scale and modify in response to changing conditions. Organizations looking to make the most of this modern methodology need to be intimately familiar with the essential features of microservices architecture.
Key Takeaways:
Microservices architecture refers to an application model in which an app consists of many modular components, rather than being a single, monolithic service. An architecture defined by collections of microservices is a core characteristic of modern cloud-native applications.
Public cloud and hybrid cloud environments inherently bring scalability to IT operations. By choosing to capitalize on the beneficial features of microservices architecture, organizations can scale with even greater ease, while also accelerating development and deployment.
Microservices form a distributed system, allowing different teams to work independently without burdening one another with excessive workload issues. This gives rise to newfound capabilities in DevOps scenarios.
Capitalizing on microservices architecture requires a thorough understanding of its most essential features and their unique capabilities. With that level of understanding, organizations can overcome the complexity of modern IT and continue to grow their operations with minimal inhibition.
Containerization and microservices go hand in hand in identifying the characteristics of cloud-native applications. The quintessential cloud-native app is one in which the code is packaged as containers, while the architecture itself consists of microservices.
Containers, as they pertain to microservices, are essential because they are capable of packaging services in a resource-efficient manner and provide a variety of deployment options to developers. Containerization also brings the possibility of adopting a “use-only-what-you-need” approach to development, enabling organizations to cut unnecessary costs.
Containers also play a key role in enabling other features of microservices architecture. A container, often in the form of a virtual machine, provides the resources and means to package disparate microservices together to serve a greater purpose.
Implementing containerization into microservices architecture helps to keep an abundant number of services organized and packaged neatly, but there is, in turn, a massive explosion of containers occurring in the IT space as well.
Kubernetes is an open-source container orchestration platform that automates the deployment, scaling, and management of numerous containerized applications. Microservices management is another popular, and highly practical, use for Kubernetes.
Microservices, by definition, imply that the application is divided into separate components. As a feature of microservices architecture, this componentization, where each microservice is a modular component, means that each element is independently replaceable without affecting the rest of the app.
Another way to describe this property is as a sort of “decoupling” of components. Each service couples with another to form the overall application, but they can be decoupled for focused building, alteration, and monitoring.
Numerous microservices work together by way of network connections to create one cohesive service in the form of a consistent application. Each component, though, is capable of performing one persistent task that could constitute an application in its own right.
Decentralization is another essential feature of microservices architecture. The architecture inherently exists as a decentralized web of services, where each component has very few dependencies.
This contributes to the scalability of an organization, because decision-makers can allocate resources to grow only the services that are in the highest demand. There is no need to waste resources expanding the entire operation when expanding only the essential components will suffice.
It is important to note that decentralization is possible largely as a result of the componentization unique to microservices architecture. When each service is an independent component, there are few to no dependencies that an admin needs to satisfy when placing those services across different locations in a distributed environment.
In an article for Forbes, the founder and CEO of UCROWDME, Greg Griffiths, pointed out the importance of decentralization in IT innovation. “[Decentralized innovation] challenges your business’s status quo and inspires change on demand [and] your business will be more connected than ever.” This tenet is one particularly strong reason why microservices architecture is increasingly becoming a mainstream methodology.
The use of microservices as an application’s core architecture brings all the benefits of containerization, componentization, and decentralization during the development process and throughout the app’s entire lifecycle. While microservices architecture entails the presence of these features as a matter of fact, being able to utilize those features to their fullest potential requires a cloud platform that provides power, functionality, and simplicity through a single console.
Nutanix Prism is a tool that enables operators to monitor, unify, and manage networks, data, applications, and even individual services anywhere. Accessible data control, clearly defined application lifecycles, and built-in self-service capabilities make this a platform that anyone can use to bypass the complexity of microservices architecture and other complicated IT infrastructure deployments.
Prism makes it easy to leverage all the features of microservices architecture, whether that architecture exists natively in the Nutanix environment or in other third-party clouds in a multicloud ecosystem. As microservices become an increasingly integral part of application development, managing and accessing them should never be a pain point for businesses.
Learn more about other ways to simplify data management in a hybrid cloud setup.
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