Why We're Not Using Microservices

A Devopedia Case Study

What is Devopedia?

A knowledge-sharing platform inspired partly by Wikipedia
Developers can collaborate on content creation and editing
Simple explanations that avoid ~~abstruse~~ difficult technical jargon
Built as a responsive web app
Managed by Devopedia Foundation

Joomla! MVC Architecture

Model-View-Controller

Source: https://joomla.stackexchange.com/questions/599/diagram-of-joomla-architecture

Abstractions in Joomla! CMS

Components

Modules

Plugins

Templates

Source: https://www.javatpoint.com/architecture-of-joomla

Arch. of Devopedia App

Let's see some code!

When Monoliths Make Sense

For a startup with limited resources
Release an MVP quickly
No experience in building distributed systems
No performance bottlenecks
Team is well-versed in a particular framework and employs it effectively

The Evolution

Users

Articles

Versioning

Drafts

Reviews

Social Login

Locks

Acronyms

Requests

Comments

Likes

Workshops

Badges

DevCoins

ML Models

Simplicity is a great virtue but it requires hard work to achieve it and education to appreciate it. And to make matters worse: complexity sells better.

-- Edsger W. Dijkstra

Edsger W. Dijkstra

Source: https://dev.to/alex_barashkov/microservices-vs-monolith-architecture-4l1m

Monolith

Single deployable unit
Application evolves as a single unit
Complexity increases with time (code, teamsize, etc.)
Scaling is a limited to vertical scaling
Reliability has its limits
Single platform and technology
Database transactions

Microservices

Separately deployable services
Each service can evolve separately
Complexity is managed in small units
Each service can be scaled independently
Higher reliability
Multiple choice of platforms and technologies
Eventual consistency

Challenges with Microservices

Introduces network latency

Hard to design it right

Need to orchestrate the services

Hard to debug problems

Unreliable network calls

Autonomous cross-functional teams

Distributed Monolith

Source: https://www.feval.ca/posts/microservices/

Modular Monolith

Source: https://medium.com/design-and-tech-co/modular-monoliths-a-gateway-to-microservices-946f2cbdf382

Use of packages
Public APIs only at the service layer
Java 9 has modules to support this architecture
Could we package horizontally (a layered architecture)?

Component vs Microservice