What are the benefits of using microservices and serverless architectures for flexibility and scalability?

Microservices support an design approach where you have narrow scope for you services with each service only perform 1 or at most 2 pieces of functionality. This promotes reusability and composition of multiple microservices to support a complex process, which lends it self to an organisation having a catalogue of these services which should be well documented and can form the basis for any new processes requiring the functionality offered. We should resist the temptation to add new functionality to a microservice where it expands the scope of the service e.g Adding a contact should not support deleting a contact.

From my perspective microservices are like Lego blocks for software. Instead of building one big structure, you create many small, independent pieces that work together. Each piece does a specific job, like handling user authentication or processing payments. This approach makes it easier to develop, test, and update software. Plus, if one piece breaks, it doesn't bring down the whole system. It's like having a flexible and resilient building system for your applications.

Serverless computing is like renting a car instead of buying one. Instead of managing servers and infrastructure, you focus on writing code. You upload your code to a platform like AWS Lambda or Azure Functions, and they take care of running it for you. You only pay for the time your code is actually running, so it's cost-effective. It's like having a car available whenever you need it, without worrying about maintenance or parking.

The potential proliferation of microservices can be a problem especially if the are very tightly bound in scope. There has to be a balance of scope best practises and implementing the service in the real world. Communication between microservices to orchestrate activities in a process can be problematic and needs to be carefully controlled, making sure each service has successfully completed their functionality.

Mulesoft provide a lot of material on best practises for designing and composing microservices. They advise to follow a design methodology of having 3 different types of microservices. These can be broadly classified as experience microservices and APIs, process microservices for composition and orchestration and system microservices and APIs for CRUD type access to data and systems.

The other related areas for consideration are: - The roadmap for your organisations systems and how microservices can support this. - Devops and development technology toolsets and skills required. - API design and exposure of microservices. This is quite a big topic in itself and requires careful consideration.