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How To Build an Efficient Microservices Architecture

The expectation in today’s tech space is that one platform, should be able to satisfy most or all of the end-user’s needs. Software bundled as a collection of microservices makes it possible to meet that expectation.

Fortune Business Insights reports that the global cloud microservices market size was valued at $1.29 billion in 2022 and is projected to grow to $6.04 billion by 2030. More and more organizations are building microservices architecture as a path to success, but enterprise leaders need a solution that provides simplicity in the face of microservice complexity.

Key Takeaways:

Building an architecture specifically to accommodate microservices helps guarantee that each service is autonomous and specialized while also being scalable and readily available.
Building this type of architecture first requires IT teams to prepare the right disaster recovery measures, hypervisor tools, and resource allocation strategies.
Best practices when building microservice-centric architecture include accounting for automation, interoperability, and infrastructure resiliency.

What Is a Microservices Architecture?

Microservices architecture refers to a distinct software development approach in which the software is designed to comprise many small independent services that communicate over defined APIs. The proliferation of containerization as a software packaging method is an example of the influence of microservices in modern IT.

The benefit of building an architecture focused on microservices is that the resulting applications are more scalable, easier to develop, and more readily available to hit the market. Software made up of many microservices is also relatively independent, meaning that it is also resilient to failure situations that might otherwise affect standard applications that have more dependencies on external components.

This differs from traditional monolithic architecture in that an application designed as a monolith performs a process as a single service. This leads to complexity as demand grows for the individual complication because the entire architecture must scale with it.

Microservices, on the other hand, are autonomous and specialized. Each individual microservice aims to address a specific demand or problem and can go through every stage of its life cycle, from development to retirement, without ever needing to affect the function of any other service.

What Are the Prerequisites for Enabling Microservices Architecture?

Disaster recovery is a crucial prerequisite for ensuring the success of any type of architecture. When building or enabling microservices architecture using a third-party platform, the simplest way to satisfy this prerequisite may be to use that vendor’s proprietary disaster recovery-as-a-service solution.

Choosing and correctly implementing the right hypervisor is another particularly important requirement. Virtualization is a powerful method for supporting the deployment of microservice-based applications, and the hypervisor is the invaluable technology component that enables this virtualization and facilitates the allocation of resources.

While the hypervisor will be responsible for managing resource allocation in real time, it’s prudent to outline the criteria for this allocation in advance. Microservices require significant CPU, memory, and disk resources to accommodate high volumes of communications and extensive bandwidth needs. The architecture designer is responsible for ensuring that there will be enough resources to go around for both microservices and other infrastructure processes.

There is, of course, also the need for servers that will host the soon-to-be-established microservices architecture. Before enabling these microservices, it’s necessary to configure a Name server and NTP server according to the specific needs of the organization and the tasks expected of the microservices.

Best Practices When Building Microservices Architecture

The top priority when building IT architecture is the network itself. With the right tools and industry-standard processes, the network will be resilient and its functions can better align with the needs of developers when building and deploying microservices.

Implementing automation wherever possible is another best practice that streamlines the process of building a new IT architecture as well as many other network and cloud-centric processes across the enterprise. Automation is especially crucial where microservices are involved because it makes it practically feasible to deploy and operate those services at scale.

It is also important to account for interoperability in the design of microservices architecture. Microservices are numerous, complex, and constantly communicating with one another. Without the right interoperability measures in place, such as container orchestration tools or API gateways, the network of microservices can become fragmented or complex beyond the point of easy operation.

Microservices themselves are resilient due to the independent nature of each service. However, the platform itself also needs built-in resilience to support and protect the development and deployment processes. Choosing a platform that is naturally secure and resilient, such as Nutanix Cloud Platform with security-hardened clusters, makes it easy to build resilience into the architecture itself.

Deploying Microservices Architecture on the Right Cloud Platform

Building an efficient architecture designed from the ground up to accommodate microservices is a matter of satisfying the necessary prerequisites ahead of time and following best practices every step of the way. Microservices are continuing to become the de facto organizational approach to software development in the cloud, so it stands to reason that choosing the right cloud platform is another essential step of the journey.

Nutanix Cloud Platform (NCP) supports a wide variety of private and public cloud use cases, including the development of microservices and more. With Nutanix AHV on NCP, organizations can harness a virtualization platform that powers cloud-native workloads comprising containers and running microservices at any scale.

Microservices architecture is a necessary answer to the modern question of how businesses can satisfy the manifold demands of consumers with just a few software deployments. It’s an answer that can also burden the enterprise with complexity, but the right cloud platform makes it possible to resolve that complexity with layers of user-friendly simplicity.

Learn more about microservices as a cloud-native computing method as well as other ways to rethink cloud workloads.

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