What are microservices?

Microservices (aka microservice architecture) is an IT architectural style, structuring an application as a collection of services.

A microservice architecture enables the frequent, rapid, and reliable delivery of complex, large applications. Microservices helps organizations evolve its technology stack.

What are common characteristics of a microservices architecture?

The industry has adopted the following characteristics as the standard:

  • Small
  • Messaging–enabled
  • Bounded by contexts
  • Autonomously developed
  • Independently deployable
  • Decentralized
  • Language–agnostic
  • Built and released with automated processes

An implementation of this architecture includes microservice services and microservice patterns, and it’s those patterns that allow services to service clients or other services.

What is the difference between microservices and microservice architecture? 

While you may see microservices and microservice architecture used interchangeably, they’re not quite the same. A microservice architecture is a style of engineering highly–automated, evolvable software systems that are made up of capability–aligned microservices.

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