Microservices and Serverless Architecture: A Winning Combination For Your Company

The utilisation of technology is one of the key characteristics that sets a company apart from its rivals in any business. Organizations must thus modernize in light of the new technology.

Having said that, it is equally crucial to make sure the company strikes a balance between the flexibility of its present technological investments and the return on those investments in the future. When taking this into account, careful planning and understanding of the structures involved in the upgrading process should be weighed.

The demand for apps that can expand quickly and are flexible enough to perform better with continuous delivery has increased along with the speed at which technology is developing. Technologies like microservices and serverless computing have developed in response to these changing requirements.

Here, serverless architecture and microservices architecture are discussed, which prompts the curious issue of which architecture will best serve our company’s objectives. One is occasionally a better fit than the other. Security continues to be a top issue for both designs, despite the fact that both technologies use distinct strategies.

You may employ a reputable software development company and use its cloud computing services if that is what your organization needs. Because every firm wants to provide the greatest software, it can be challenging to determine which one is right for you. However, you should be aware of the services you are requesting and what will be provided to you before you hire them.

This blog aims to amplify that understanding serverless architecture and microservice architecture is crucial for comprehending how the two vary from one another.

What is a Microservice?

The term “microservice” refers to the architectural pattern of segmenting an application into smaller applications or services. This is the complete opposite of monolithic design, where all functionality is contained in a single object.

Let’s use an eCommerce application as an example to help our comprehension. The user looks up the item(s), adds them to the shopping cart, and then places the order. A number of services that operate separately are combined via application programming interfaces (API). Microservices provide things like a shopping cart, checkout, and product services.

The deployment of microservices may be done in a variety of methods. Each microservice has the fundamental components it needs to function independently, including its own database, libraries, and templates. It essentially adheres to the SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) principles, which provide the user with the power to build new applications and execute different apps independently.

All of the application’s features are distributed into smaller apps or services that can operate on their own while still functioning as a whole. Before being deployed, each of these microservice apps is created and functionally tested.

Such an architectural framework is helpful since it makes it simpler to fix a microservice that becomes damaged or needs maintenance without disrupting the other services and, as a result, the functionality as a whole.

Microservice types

1. Stateless Microservices

This kind of microservice does not keep the current data on file. Every time an interface is used, a new one is established, and since data is never retained, it must always be added.

2. Stateful Microservices

This kind of microservice consistently keeps a record in the database, facilitating effective coding for the user. Such data must be kept in an external data store, such as an RDBMS, NoSQL database, etc.

What is Serverless Architecture?

In a serverless architecture, the application is partially or entirely hosted on a third-party server, such as a cloud server. However, the name is inaccurate as it says there is no server. Instead, it implies that the organizations are relieved of the responsibility of investing in and maintaining the location’s actual hardware. A dependable third party manages the network, storage, physical infrastructure, and other components.

Simply said, developers should concentrate on writing code. The service provider handles everything else, including load balancing, capacity management, scalability, logging, and monitoring, in addition to security fixes. Popular third-party systems include Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and AWS Lamba serverless architecture.

Serverless architecture operates from two distinct angles:

1. Function as Service (FaaS)

With just a few resources, the users of this service may build a modular architecture that is both scalable and effective. FaaS is best demonstrated by Cloudflare Workers.

2. Backend as Service (BaaS)

Basically, this service is utilised to develop online and mobile applications. Users may concentrate on the application’s front end thanks to the utilisation of third-party services. AWS Lambda is the ideal instance of a BaaS.

The key difference between microservice and serverless architecture

The main distinction is that serverless is an architecture for running a portion or the entire programme, whereas microservices is a strategy for designing an application. Serverless architecture can host microservices.

When an organization requires automated scalability and lower runtime costs, it is ideal to choose serverless functions, and when it wants flexibility and to switch to a more current design, it should choose a microservices architecture.

Combining serverless and microservices

The development team may bridge the gap and combine serverless architecture with microservices architecture by using the methodology described below.

• A microservice must be event-triggered in order to be serverless. Microservices must react to certain circumstances and user activities in order to perform.
• Triggers may be assigned to microservices and several functions can be merged into one service by using Logic Apps (Microsoft) or Step Functions (Amazon). This makes integrating them more likely to succeed.
• The growth of serverless functions is heavily reliant on cloud computing and storage. In order to execute certain serverless architectural principles, it is crucial to switch to cloud infrastructure.

Conclusion

We anticipate that after defining how these two cloud computing services can be combined together, you have learned more about how these services will help your company and improve its functioning.

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