Microservices Architecture Guide
Patterns, pros/cons, challenges, and best practices.
Architecture Patterns
API Gateway
Single entry point, routing, auth
Use: Client-facing services
Service Registry
Discover services dynamically
Use: Dynamic service discovery
Circuit Breaker
Fail gracefully, prevent cascade
Use: Service resilience
Event Bus
Async communication via events
Use: Decoupled services
CQRS
Separate read/write paths
Use: Complex read/write patterns
Pros & Cons
Pros
• Independent deployment
• Technology flexibility
• Team autonomy
• Fault isolation
• Scalability per service
Cons
• Complexity overhead
• Distributed system challenges
• Testing complexity
• Operational burden
• Network latency
Common Challenges
Data consistency
Solution: Eventual consistency, sagas
Service discovery
Solution: Registry (Eureka, Consul)
Testing
Solution: Contract tests, integration tests
Monitoring
Solution: Distributed tracing (Jaeger, Zipkin)
Best Practices
Start with monolith
Break by business domain
Keep services small
API contracts first
Automate deployment
Monitor everything
Design for failure
Document boundaries
Microservices Checklist
1. Identify business domains. 2. Define service boundaries. 3. Design API contracts. 4. Choose communication pattern. 5. Plan data strategy. 6. Set up monitoring. 7. Implement CI/CD. 8. Design for failure. 9. Test distributed scenarios. 10. Document architecture. Microservices = complexity + flexibility. Start simple, decompose when needed.