With the rise of the pandemic, the global population has truly shifted its paradigm to the digital world. In return, the ecommerce industry had to enhance its features to be even more effective and efficient. The monolithic architectures utilized commonly in the past few decades have slowly become insufficient. Due to their lack of scalability and a one-size-fits-all approach, an ecommerce platform built around it cannot cater to the ever-increasing customer and market demands. For example, as your consumer base increases, so will the need to update their records and maintain them accordingly. In a monolithic approach, a platform cannot scale it’s databases without working on every different functionality, which is difficult and time-consuming.
Microservices help businesses overcome challenges with monolithic architecture. It has completely revolutionized the ecommerce industry. Through the implementation of the microservice model, ecommerce businesses can expand and explore new ideas like never before. As per a global survey of 354 enterprises conducted by Bernd Ruecker the cofounder of Camunda, more than 60% of organizations have shifted towards the utilization of microservice architectures. The purpose of this blog is to understand microservices and how they have revolutionized the world of ecommerce.
What are Microservices?
Microservices refers to the type of software architecture that breaks down one extensive application into several different portions based on different functionalities. Each component is more or less independent of the other and has its own code base and a separate data model. They communicate with one another through a set of well-defined APIs. For example, in a typical ecommerce website following the microservices architecture, the payment management, shopping cart, reviews and feedback section are all treated as individual microservices.
Microservices are popular because the services are loosely coupled with one another. This means that every time a developer wants to change anything in one service, they can develop and deploy the service without changing anything in the other services/functionalities of the application. Your platform is highly scalable, and delays are avoided.
Famous Migrations
Many tech giants have adopted and shifted to the microservices architecture. Netflix, eBay, and Uber are some of the largest organizations that started with a traditional monolithic architecture and switched over to the world of microservices after realizing the need for rapid and continuous expansion.
Architecture and Components
A Basic Model Representing the Flow of Microservice Architecture.
- Services
Each service has a particular and small-scale functionality, loosely coupled with the other services. All the services maintain their own database and internal state. The code base of each service is small. A separate team works on each service. They can build and deploy the service portion as required.
- Management
The purpose of management is to place each microservice on its respective nodes. They also manage any of the issues that may arise on the nodes. For example, if a service fails to load properly on a node, the management component will be responsible for resolving this issue.
- Service Discovery
As the name suggests, the purpose of this component is to make a list of each service and identify which service is currently present on what node.
- API Gateway
The API Gateway handles the client’s requests for particular services. It recognizes and distinguishes each request and forwards it to its respective services.
Advantages of Microservices
Following are some of the advantages of implementing Microservices on ecommerce platforms.
Scalability
Scalability is one of the most distinguished and essential advantages of microservices. Developers can add or update functionalities according to market demands in short periods of time. They implement the changes without interrupting other parts of the application.
Independence
Teams are no longer dependent on each other to complete and deliver different tasks. Similarly, all the microservices loosely couple with one another. This means that one service does not have an impact on another. For example, suppose an organization expands its payment procedure service, but its cart and feedback service do not need any modifications. In that case, their efficiency is not reduced. The microservices continue running in their respective environments.
Quick Deployment
As the development process is reduced in microservices, the developers are able to complete the functionality faster, any bugs are identified easily, and the deployment is accelerated. Developers can identify and adjust issues easily.
Enhanced Resilience
If a particular service fails to run or execute properly, this will not bring down the whole application. Bugs are easy to spot, which reduces application downtime.
Multiple Technology Tolerant
Since microservices are not dependent on one another, developers can use different languages, libraries, and reactive frameworks to develop their microservice.
Differences Between Monolithic, Headless, and Microservice Based Architecture
Monolithic architecture serves as the foundation for most ecommerce applications. Each component of such an application is tightly coupled, making it impossible to introduce any change without impacting the whole system. This means that if one functionality, such as the payment system of a monolithic application is altered, every other service will have to be changed and updated as well. The monolithic architecture also imposes a great deal of limitation for the developers in terms of high-quality interactive experiences at the front-end of any application. This is because any changes at the front-end of the application require a complete deployment of the application, and every single back-end component has to be altered accordingly.
In a headless architecture, the front-end and back-end of applications are separated from one another. Each functionality is not completely decoupled. This allows changes to be made in the front-end of the application as per the demands of the market without interrupting the back-end.
When it comes to an authentic Microservice architecture, each functionality is decoupled from one another, not just the front-end and the back-end.
UpStart Commerce and Microservices
Microservices are the future of ecommerce. With the continuous growth of ecommerce platforms, the need to rescale businesses is increasing daily. Implementing microservice based architecture allows developers to access more technology. As a result, more organizations are shifting towards the microservice platform.
Understanding the market demand, UpStart Commerce offers efficient solutions for our customers. Experience the true essence of independent and continuous scalability with the microservices that we provide at Upstart Commerce.
