Microservices vs. Service-Oriented Architecture

Chapter 5. Summary

The microservices architecture pattern is a rising star in the IT industry. Although the microservices pattern has certainly addressed the many issues commonly found in large monolithic applications and complex SOA architectures, it does lack some of the core capabilities provided by a SOA—including contract decoupling and protocol-agnostic heterogeneous interoperability.

One of the fundamental concepts to remember is that microservices architecture is a share-as-little-as-possible architecture pattern that places a heavy emphasis on the concept of a bounded context, whereas SOA is a share-as-much-as-possible architecture pattern that places heavy emphasis on abstraction and business functionality reuse. By understanding this fundamental concept—as well as the other characteristics, capabilities, and shortcomings of both microservices and SOA that I discussed in this report—you can make a more informed decision about which architecture pattern is right for your situation.

For more information about microservices, SOA, and distributed architecture in general, you can view Service-Based Architectures: Structure, Engineering Practices, and Migration (O’Reilly video) by Neal Ford and Mark Richards.

For an excellent in-depth look at microservices, I highly recommend Sam Newman’s book Building Microservices (O’Reilly).

Finally, for more information about messaging as it relates to service-based architectures for both microservices and SOA, you can view Enterprise ...