Microservices are everywhere now, and it’s not hard to see. Websites and applications no longer need ages to view, everything we use is constantly being updated, and the internet generally seems much faster than before. All of this can be attributed to the introduction of microservices.
Essentially, microservices have helped to replace monolithic architectures within systems where applications first began. The reason this replacement was necessary was that microservices are much easier to implement, modify, update, and maintain while being very easy to scale. Before we explain exactly how microservices are easier to scale than monoliths, it is important for you to know what these two systems are:
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What Is A Monolithic Architecture?
A monolithic architecture has been adopted by nearly every online platform since the internet started off with cloud-based services. It refers to a tightly-coupled architecture where each component is dependent on another. There have been a few advantages to monolithic architectures, especially when they are implemented on small-scale platforms, such as they are easier to develop, debug, and even test. All the components are right there, and if the system is working, everything is working.
However, when online platforms gained more traction and became popular worldwide, this was when monolithic structures became a problem. For example, in 2008, Netflix had to shut down operations for an entire day when they were unable to ship DVDs to their customers. This was because their monolithic architecture was unable to keep up with all the requests, and eventually, the website had to pay the price. Therefore, Netflix adopted a microservice-based architecture even before it became common just to keep up with all the requests they received.
Basically, in a monolithic architecture, each component is dependent on the other, so if one component needs to be updated or modified, the entire system has to be halted. This created massive downtimes in the operations of the company, which ultimately did cost them time and money.
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What is A Microservice-Based Architecture?
On the other hand, microservices are based on a loosely-coupled or decoupled architecture, where there are little to no dependencies on every component. Compared to monolithic architectures, microservices are exponentially more scalable, better with security concerns, more agile, and offer improved fault isolation as well. Most organizations have switched to microservices or at-leased a much less tightly-coupled system with fewer dependencies for smooth operations.
Each component has a small team designated to it in a microservice-based architecture, which modifies, updates, or debugs the component as necessary. When a single component needs to be worked on, only that component might suffer from some downtime, along with its dependencies (if any), and the rest of the system will still be functioning as usual. So a microservice-based architecture can be seen as a loosely-coupled architecture where each component is completely separate from the other. They just come together to make a single application function.
Most online platforms we know, such as Netflix, Amazon, eBay, and Uber, use microservices in their infrastructure and made the switch at least a decade ago. For example, eBay switched to microservices in 2011 when their previous system was unable to handle the traffic their website received as it gained popularity over the years.
The biggest challenge presented by microservices is that the architecture is quite complex and could be difficult to bring together. Each component, even if it is independent, needs to be able to communicate with one another, and this could be difficult, especially if there are a large number of services involved.
How Does The Scaling Differ?
There is a significant difference between monolithic and microservices-based infrastructure, and for large organizations, one clearly fares better than the other. Microservices are much more scalable than monolithic architectures, and the main reason for this is the components.
Microservices are scaled qualitatively and quantitatively. Qualitatively speaking, microservices are scaled to fit a specific service in the environment, while quantitatively, microservices should be able to handle the traffic they are receiving. The application will grow with the number of people who are using it while still offering ease of use and efficiency to all of its users.
A massive advantage in terms of scaling that microservice have is in terms of resource allocation. The resources needed to maintain each service, such as the RAM, Storage, and CPU specifications, can be allocated as such, and whichever service needs more processing power will receive it. The system can easily respond to a single service without affecting any other. While some components have dependencies, downtime used to debug or maintain a service can also make use of cascading features which help to prevent the dependencies of the service from being affected.
Microservice maintenance does not affect the entire system since each component is maintained separately while the interface is still up and running. Microservices have been able to offer top-performances with little to no downtime because of how easily scalable they are.
On the other hand, there is no concept of containerization and decoupling in a monolithic structure. Therefore, every component is highly dependent on each other. Resources cannot be allocated to a single service, even if the whole system is on the cloud. So updating the system could sometimes even take a few days, and their availability to the public could take a few weeks. The entire system could once be scaled up and down, which would create redundancies that would cost the software to bloat and increase the cloud costs. Not only that but scaling the entire system also requires a lot more time and allocation of resources than are needed for microservices.
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Conclusion
Microservices are much easier to scale than monolithic structures because they are loosely coupled, and each component can be dealt with separately from one another. Monolithic architectures are now outdated for large organizations since the entire system would have to be scaled up or down simultaneously, which would cost the system more time and money. Therefore, microservice are easier to integrate, update, maintain, and even deploy.
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