With the dawn of the World Wide Web (WWW) in the early 2000s, eRetailers emerged, ushering in a revolutionary era of ecommerce. Additionally, a new software architecture known as Microservices began gaining traction within ecommerce businesses. Microservices offered rapidly growing ecommerce companies both flexibility and agility. Indeed, the days of having to be tied to traditional monolithic software architectures were over. In fact, most businesses today are realizing that conventional enterprise-wide software increasingly stifles innovation and delays the launch of new features. However, there is hope as more businesses are recognizing microservices’ advantages. Namely, microservices enable companies to swiftly adopt emerging technologies and remain agile, thus, giving them a competitive edge.

In this article, I’ll explain exactly what microservices are and what it means to businesses, especially ecommerce and order fulfillment companies. Also, I’ll introduce to you to the MACH ecosystem architecture that many ecommerce businesses use to leverage microservices and other cutting-edge technologies such as APIs, cloud services, and headless ecommerce. Further, I’ll detail the microservices’ advantages for businesses. Lastly, I’ll list the challenges of microservices architectures, and more importantly, provide examples on how to mitigate in order to reap its advantages.

1. What are Microservices?

Software developers started using the term “microservices” back in the early 2000s. Advocates of a microservice architecture saw it as an alternative to the monolithic software architecture favored prior to the advent of the World Wide Web. For the purposes of this article, I’ll use the following definition for microservices:

Microservices Definition

“…  an approach to developing a single application as a suite of small services, each running in its own process and communicating with lightweight mechanisms, often an … API. These services are built around business capabilities and independently deployable by fully automated deployment machinery. There is a bare minimum of centralized management of these services, which may be written in different programming languages and use different data storage technologies.”

James Lewis

I like this Microservices definition in that it highlights the key components of a Microservices architecture. This includes:

Microservices Key Characteristics

a. Flexible Tech Stacks.

First, it uses programming languages, databases, and tools that are best suited for each service’s requirements. Indeed, this flexibility encourages innovation and allows teams to take advantage of the latest technologies.

b. Independently Deployable and Scalable.

Also, it enables deployment of updates to one service without affecting others. This results in a significantly reduced risk of widespread system failures during deployments. Also, these scalable services ensure that an application can handle increased loads. Specifically, a microservices architecture is able to do this by scaling out only the services that require additional resources rather than scaling the entire application.

c. Simple Intra-Application Interfaces.

Further, it uses well-defined application interfaces such as APIs that simplify both development and maintenance. This is due to the microservices data interfaces clarifying each service’s responsibilities and interactions. Moreover, well-designed data interfaces facilitate integration with third-party systems or future applications.

d. Business Domain-Driven Design.

Additionally, by a microservices architecture structuring services around business capabilities, organizations are able to create solutions that are more intuitive and aligned with their operational goals. Further, this alignment between services and business domains leads to clearer service boundaries. Hence, this improves collaboration between developers and domain experts.

e. Minimum Centralized Management.

Key coordination is necessary only for system-wide concerns like security, logging, and shared infrastructure.

For a more detailed discussions on microservices, see James Lewis’ article, Microservices. Also, see Orient’s article, What Are Advantages & Disadvantages of Microservices Architecture? Lastly, see CAMUNDA’s article, Top Advantages and Disadvantages of Microservices: Biggest Benefits of Microservices and Key Use Cases for more discussions on microservices and its use cases.

2. Example of How Microservices Works Within an Ecommerce MACH Ecosystem.

The first ecommerce platforms were monolithic in nature where all ecommerce functionality was bundled together. Now information technology has matured greatly. Indeed, many retailers are now taking advantage of microservices. Further, e-retailers are increasingly supported by a comprehensive microservices ecosystem called a MACH architecture. This MACH ecosystem – Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, and Headless –  provides a modern infrastructure for e-retailers. To understand the basics of these technologies, see below. This description of the MACH architecture comes from the Mach Alliance. 

What Is The MACH Ecosystem?

• M – Microservices: Individual pieces of business functionality that are independently developed, deployed, and managed.
• A – API-first: All functionality is exposed through an API.
• C – Cloud-native SaaS: Here, businesses leverage the cloud. Besides storage and hosting this also includes elastic scaling and automatically updating.
• H – Headless: Front-end presentation is decoupled from back-end logic and channel, programming language, and is framework agnostic.

Headless Ecommerce Fundamentals: Ways It Is Changing Supply Chain Tech

With a MACH architecture, each microservices operate like specialized service hubs. Specifically, each microservice is dedicated to a unique task such as payment processing, inventory management, or customer support. Further, these hubs are interconnected through a network of APIs, allowing them to communicate efficiently and without interference.

For instance, when a customer places an order, the order management microservice springs into action. Simultaneously, the same customer’s order event initiates a notification to the inventory service microservice and triggers the payment processing service. As a result of this MACH ecosystem, the entire shopping experience is smooth, with each microservice updating the other in real time.

So, the MACH architecture offers many benefits to e-retailers over monolithic ecommerce systems. These benefits include a customer-centric architecture, lightning-fast web performance, reduced time-to-market, best-of-class toolset. and enables decentralized, frequent upgrades. For more on the MACH ecosystem and headless ecommerce, see my article, Headless Ecommerce Fundamentals: Ways It Is Changing Supply Chain Tech. Also, for a more detailed discussion on the MACH ecosystem, see SITECORE’s article, What Is MACH Architecture? and alokai’s MACH Architecture: Principles, Benefits and Examples.

3.  Microservices’ Advantages and Mitigation Strategies to Minimize its Challenges.

The adoption of microservices architecture brings many advantages to businesses, especially eRetailers and order fulfillment companies. First, it allows for targeted scalability where services can be scaled independently, thus ensuring efficient resource use. The decentralized nature of microservices also boosts fault isolation, meaning that an issue in one service doesn’t cause a total system collapse. However, this architectural approach is not a silver bullet. It introduces complexity in deployment and management. Therefore, while microservices can significantly amplify a business system’s capabilities, this type of architecture demands a strategic approach and a mature IT operation to manage the intricacies they entail.

Below, are the advantages of microservices as well as disadvantages. Also discussed are examples to address the risks that come with microservices. First, let’s start with microservices’ advantages.

a. Microservices’ Advantages.

Below are microservices’ advantages with software development, deployment and maintenance using a microservices architecture.

1) Accelerates Scalability.

Microservices architecture allows for the independent scaling of individual components. Thus, this enables efficient resource utilization and responsiveness to varying loads.

2) Improves Fault Isolation.

With services operating independently, a failure in one microservice doesn’t necessarily cascade to others. Hence, this ensures greater system stability and uptime.

3) Flexibility in Technology Adoption.

Developers have the freedom to choose the best technology stack for each microservice. As a result, they can better optimize performance and leverage newer technologies as they become available.

4) Easier Understanding of the Codebase for Maintenance and Deployments.

Smaller, modular codebases in microservices simplify comprehension for developers. Thus, this makes maintenance and deployment tasks more straightforward.

5) Small, Independent Development Teams for Better Productivity.

Microservices enable small, autonomous teams to work on different services concurrently. As a result, this boosts overall productivity and collaboration.

6) Faster Time-to-Market for New Features and Capabilities.

The modular nature of microservices allows for quicker development and deployment of new features.

7) Facilitates DevOps Practices.

Microservices complement DevOps by supporting continuous integration and continuous delivery. Hence, this streamlines the software development lifecycle and accelerates product iterations.

8) Enables a Data-Centric Mindset Vs Application-Centric.

A microservices architecture places more importance on data interfaces and customer-centric business processes. This enables businesses to better leverage their data to gain insights on their operations versus having the data locked away in separate, monolithic software silos. For more information on a data-centric mindset, see my article, You Need To Think Data Centric To Be A Successful Business: Stop Being Data Driven, Application Centric.

You Need To Think Data Centric To Be A Successful Business: Stop Being Data Driven, Application Centric

b. Example Mitigation Strategies to Help Overcome Inherent Weaknesses in Microservices Architecture.

Below are some of the key disadvantages and cautions with using microservices. Additionally with these disadvantages, I’ll provide examples of how to mitigate the challenges that come with using a microservices architecture.

1) Increased Complexity of Communications.

Let’s Breakthrough The Data Interoperability Nightmare: It Is The Best Way To Unlock Supply Chain Innovation

One way to mitigate this microservices challenge is to implement an API gateway. This type of solution can streamline communication patterns. Additionally, this solution can provide a single entry point to better manage the increased communications complexity inherent within a microservices architecture.

2) Data Interoperability Risks.

There are many ways to mitigate data interoperability challenges. For instance, the development teams can commit to using a clear data schema and set of standards across services. As a result, this can minimize interoperability risks by ensuring consistency and clarity in data exchange. For a more detailed discussion on data interoperability, see my article, Let’s Breakthrough The Data Interoperability Nightmare: It Is The Best Way To Unlock Supply Chain Innovation.

3) Tougher Global Debugging and Testing.

Here, the development teams can adopt centralized logging and distributed tracing tools to mitigate this challenge. As a result, they can gain insights into system-wide operations which can simplify the debugging and testing process in a microservices implementation.

4) Network Congestion and Latency Issues.

In this instance, one mitigation strategy is to utilize message queuing and asynchronous communication mechanisms. Thus, this can alleviate network congestion and reduce latency by decoupling service interactions.

5) Difficulty in Ensuring Security.

Here, a business can apply a robust identity and access management (IAM) framework to mitigate security risks. These types of policies applied across the organization can help in secure microservices by managing credentials, access rights, and protecting against unauthorized access. For more detailed discussion on security, see my article, Digital Identity In Logistics And What To Know – The Best Security, Scary Risks.

Digital Identity In Logistics And What To Know – The Best Security, Scary Risks

6) Intricate Inter-Service Communications.

With this challenge, IT leadership needs to assure that microservices use well-defined APIs that simplify inter-service communications. Indeed, it is critical to ensure seamless interactions between different service components.

7) Requirement for More Skilled Personnel.

One way to mitigate this disadvantage is for businesses to Invest in continuous training and development programs. Thus, this will empower existing personnel with the skills required to manage and operate microservices effectively.

8) Deployment Versioning and Compatibility Conflicts.

To mitigate this disadvantage requires mature software development practices. For instance, the development teams can use service versioning and adhere to the principles of semantic versioning to address deployment versioning and compatibility conflicts. Without a doubt, the key is to clearly communicate changes and backward compatibility with each release.

9) Increased Dependency on Others.

One way to mitigate this disadvantage is to establish a robust service-level agreement (SLA) between microservices. This will help to reduce the adverse effects of dependencies by setting clear expectations for service performance and availability between services. Thus, this ensures individual services meet their contractual obligations.

10) Increased Cost Variability for Infrastructure, Software, and Licensing.

Yes, this is very important to mitigate, especially when leveraging cloud providers such as Microsoft Azure. For example, one approach is to closely monitor resource expenditures across microservices and to align pricing with key cost variables.

Conclusion and References.

So, a microservices architecture offers many advantages to businesses, especially ecommerce and order fulfillment companies. Indeed, it is an awesome tech capability that offers businesses flexibility and agility over traditional monolithic software architectures. At the same time, it does have its drawbacks that businesses need to mitigate to fully leverage microservices’ advantages.

For more discussions on microservices’ advantages and disadvantages, see Bob Reselman’s article, 10 disadvantages of microservices you’ll need to overcome, HiTechNectar’s article, Pros and Cons of Microservices, ATLASSIAN’s Advantages of microservices and disadvantages to know, and MarcinKwiakowski’s article, Microservices: pros and cons. Also, for more ideas on how to leverage microservices and mitigate its disadvantages, see IEEE Computer Society’s article, Top 10 Microservices Design Patterns and Their Pros and Cons. Lastly, for more on ecommerce tech trends, see my article, 7 New Trends in Ecommerce Automation and Emerging Tech to Better Empower Businesses.

7 New Trends In Ecommerce Automation And Emerging Tech To Better Empower Business

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