Microservices are small programs, each with a specific and narrow scope, that are glued together to produce what appears from the outside to be one coherent web application. This architectural style is used in contrast with a traditional “monolith” where every component and sub-routine of the application is bundled into one codebase and not separated by a network boundary. In recent years microservices have enjoyed increased popularity, concurrent with (but not necessarily requiring the use of) enabling new technologies such as Amazon Web Services and Docker. In this article, we will take a look at the “what” and “why” of microservices and at gRPC, an open source framework released by Google, which is a tool organizations are increasingly reaching for in their migration towards microservices.
Why Use Microservices?
To understand the general history and structure of microservices emerging as an architectural pattern, this Martin Fowler article is a good and fairly comprehensive read. It’s worth noting Fowler’s caveat near the end that:
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