Breaking out backend features is a great way to start decomposing legacy monoliths. Adding a message queue to your deployment makes this a pattern you can repeat with any feature that would benefit from being asynchronous. There are other patterns for breaking down monolithic apps. We can really start to modernize NerdDinner if we expose a REST API and move to a modular UI for the frontend, with a reverse proxy to route between different components. We can do all of this with Docker.
Modernizing legacy applications
Adding a REST API to expose data
Legacy apps often end up as stores of data that can't be accessed outside the app. The data would be valuable to other applications or to business partners if it was accessible...