In the current tough market, it’s crucial for companies to stay competitive. For your business to stay ahead, your development and IT teams must keep up to date with the latest technologies and innovations. By investigating different alternatives and leveraging the newest software stacks, you can gain a competitive edge.
Choosing between a monolithic or microservices architecture is a significant decision for any enterprise. Selecting the appropriate option could result in greater prosperity, while the wrong selection may make maintaining a dependable data center a complex task.
It’s imperative that the individuals who make decisions within your company comprehend the potential outcomes of their choices, as using the wrong technology could pose difficulties for your engineers. This could have a notable effect on the entire application development process, regardless of whether you use Java, JavaScript, Ruby, or .NET.
So, what are these architectural designs? Let’s take a closer look at each option and determine which one is the ideal fit for your requirements.
The Advantages of Monolithic Architecture
Monolithic architecture is the foundation because it’s the most fundamental approach. This is due to the enduring history of constructing single-piece applications. In reality, when people think of ‘software’, they visualise a single, cohesive program.
A monolithic application refers to a unified entity, but this doesn’t necessarily imply that all the components are included. Let’s delve deeper into this concept to obtain a better understanding.
End-users have the ability to install specific software by themselves, such as the open-source office suite called LibreOffice. This software doesn’t rely on any external services or tools to function properly; instead, all tasks are managed on the user’s local computer.
On the contrary, WordPress is a blogging platform that requires the following to operate accurately:
- A system that stores and manages data from a database
- Software that is executed on a server instead of a client computer.
- An interface that is specifically utilised by the client
All of these components form a strong foundation on which the entire system is built.
Feeling perplexed? Let’s dissect it into its most basic form from a programmer’s perspective.
Let’s assume that your company has adopted a complete Content Management System that includes a database, server program, and client User Interface which have been built in-house and it’s operating ideally, and your personnel rely on it daily, then we can accept this as factual.
It’s probable that your team will want to introduce additional functionality into the server-side component of the program. To accomplish this, you will need to completely reinstall the server-side program. Although this can be a lengthy and laborious process, the potential benefits could make it worthwhile (which includes crafting, development, quality assurance testing and implementation).
Architecture founded on microservices
The microservices architecture will now be examined in depth. Microservices dismantle a complex application into multiple smaller and easier-to-manage components. Each component is responsible for a specific function in delivering the application’s services, which are then integrated to form the complete application.
Containers exemplify an outstanding model of a microservices architecture.
Deploying an NGINX server as an independent service is a feasible alternative. Once installed on a Linux server, NGINX is set to serve websites independently, and MariaDB, a database management system, can also be added to the configuration. Nevertheless, before commencing the implementation, two major obstacles must be taken into account.
Initially, it’s crucial to keep in mind that updating one component of the webserver doesn’t imply ignoring any other components, such as the database. Secondly, it’s possible that this deployment plan may not be scalable enough to efficiently cater to any potential future business demands.
Another option is to apply containerization to separately deploy each component of the web server as microservices. The NGINX web server and the database can both be launched in a Kubernetes pod, accompanied by a network service and a storage volume that connects them.
Kubernetes can automatically incorporate additional NGINX and MariaDB containers into the cluster whenever deployment expansion is required.
The microservices architecture presents the advantage of scalability and an established failover mechanism. Upgrading components is less arduous as they are all deployed separately. Additionally, containers pose no delay during upgrades, which enhances the convenience of the microservices architecture.
Which choice is the best for your enterprise?
A simple answer is at hand:
- If your enterprise necessitates substantial scalability, redundancy, and reliability, a microservices architecture is the way to proceed.
- If your business majorly relies on desktop-installed client-based solutions or if enterprise-level scalability is not of utmost importance, a monolithic architecture may be the most suitable option.
However, there’s a catch
It’s vital to note that deploying a microservices architecture can be a challenging process. Working with Kubernetes can be complicated, so it’s crucial to hire proficient developers and IT administrators to ensure successful implementation. Hire experienced developers to guarantee success.
To realize the complete advantages of microservices’ scalability, it’s essential to have adequate resources in the data center. This often necessitates deployment to a third-party cloud host, such as Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, Linode, Rackspace or Microsoft Azure. While some scalability can be attained with multiple hosts, a notable on-premise data center is usually required.
The final decision is yours to make. Nonetheless, it’s widely acknowledged that for businesses seeking growth and expansion beyond their current stature, microservices are the way to go.
