Microservices
It’s a subset of SOA style that develops a single application as a suite of small services, each running in its own process and communicating with lightweight mechanisms, often an HTTP resource API. Those services are built and deploy independently.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Cost effective to scale | Deep learning curve |
| Preserve modularity | Sometimes it might be hard to define boundaries |
| Availability | Have to pick a messaging mechanism |
| Partial deployment | |
| Multiple platforms, technology independent | |
| Easy adaption to cloud |
Service-Oriented Architecture
It’s an architectural style that is widely adapted by enterprise to build applications as a collection of services.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Easier to reuse components as services | High cost in upfront development |
| Services as contracts / interfaces | Complex service management |
| Scalability with load balancing | |
| Upgradation: easier to roll out new version of services |
Monolithic
It is a traditional architecture type which has been widely used in the industry. It is typically technology-focused and has 3 layers for entire application – user interface, business logic and database access, and they’re usually tightly coupled.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Simplicity | Very large code base hence hard to make changes |
| Consistency | One module failure affecting entire system |
| Scalability | |
| Inability to easily adapt to new technology |
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