Introducing Microservices

Microservices, or microservices architecture, is an architectural style for designing and building software applications as a collection of small, independent, and loosely coupled services. Microservices offer benefits such as scalability, agility, independent development, and improved fault tolerance. However, they also introduce challenges such as service orchestration, distributed data management, and increased complexity in system design and testing. The successful implementation of microservices requires careful consideration of the specific application requirements and a well-defined architectural strategy.

In this book, we are going to learn about microservices in general and how to architect and develop microservices in Node.js. The book is suitable for backend developers, full-stack developers, software architects, and frontend developers who want to get into the world of backend development and extend their capabilities. You will learn, in an in-depth manner, the major tips and tricks to learn how to build microservices architecture using Node.js. At the end of this book, you will be able to conceptualize, plan, and architect microservices using Node.js, as well as develop and debug them. These are the major skills that companies want their employees to have in order to design the perfect solution for every problem every time.

We’ll start this chapter with an introduction to microservices and decentralized architectures. We’ll also learn about some key concepts in microservices, such as service boundaries, loose coupling, scalability, resilience, and independent data management. Finally, we’ll overview some important abilities in microservices, including independent development and deployment, polyglot architecture, APIs, and continuous integration (CI).

By the end of this chapter, you’ll have learned the fundamentals of microservices and why they are so useful.

In this chapter, we’re going to cover the following main topics:

• Introduction to the microservices and decentralized architecture concepts
• Service boundaries and loose coupling
• Independent development and deployment and polyglot architecture
• Scalability and resilience and independent data management
• APIs and communication and CI