Microservices

Introduction

Microservices architecture structures an application as a collection of loosely coupled, independently deployable services.

Key Characteristics

• Single responsibility
• Independent deployment
• Decentralized data management
• Technology diversity
• Fault isolation

Architecture Patterns

API Gateway

Single entry point for all client requests.

Service Discovery

Automatic detection of services in the network.

Circuit Breaker

Prevents cascading failures across services.

Event-Driven

Services communicate through events/messages.

Communication Patterns

Synchronous: REST, gRPC
Asynchronous: Message Queues (Kafka, RabbitMQ)

Best Practices

• Design for failure
• Implement health checks
• Use centralized logging
• Implement distributed tracing
• Containerize services
• Use API versioning

Challenges

• Distributed system complexity
• Data consistency
• Network latency
• Service coordination
• Testing complexity