Microservices Enterprise Level-Set

Authors

Patrick McClory – Principal Consulting Analyst

Gary Rowe – CEO/Principal Consulting Analyst

Contributors

Gary Zimmerman – CMO/Principal Consulting Analyst

Chris Haddad – Principal Consulting Analyst

Abstract

This report is a level-set for enterprises considering microservices or alternative approaches to traditional application development and deployment. There has been a multitude of efforts over the years to build better software and services faster and less expensively. The microservices trend has gained increased visibility of late as organizations such as Google, Amazon, Netflix and others have rapidly deployed services at massive scale leveraging agile development teams to build small, loosely coupled services.

Enterprises are evaluating and embracing an overarching movement from traditional monolithic applications to smaller, autonomous services that work together under the umbrella of a microservice-based architecture. This allows for small, independent teams to develop business-focused services without waiting for all other services to be completed.  The goal is for this approach to result in efficient development, more consistent and frequent updates and greater flexibility.

At TechVision, we see microservices as enabling three specific, highly sought-after capabilities within the enterprise space: Faster Ideation-to-Realization, Lower TCO via Service Reuse, and Lower Operational Risk. With these three outcomes exists a re-balancing of assumptions at an engineering, financial and organizational level that, when effective, can lead to more integrative and even ‘DevOps’-like practices within the organization. We will continue to evaluate these dimensions as we dive deeper into the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of this architectural pattern throughout this report.