Skip to Content
Fundamentals of Software Architecture
book

Fundamentals of Software Architecture

by Mark Richards, Neal Ford
January 2020
Beginner
432 pages
11h 26m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Audiobook available
Content preview from Fundamentals of Software Architecture

Chapter 17. Microservices Architecture

Microservices is an extremely popular architecture style that has gained significant momentum in recent years. In this chapter, we provide an overview of the important characteristics that set this architecture apart, both topologically and philosophically.

History

Most architecture styles are named after the fact by architects who notice a particular pattern that keeps reappearing—there is no secret group of architects who decide what the next big movement will be. Rather, it turns out that many architects end up making common decisions as the software development ecosystem shifts and changes. The common best ways of dealing with and profiting from those shifts become architecture styles that others emulate.

Microservices differs in this regard—it was named fairly early in its usage and popularized by a famous blog entry by Martin Fowler and James Lewis entitled “Microservices,” published in March 2014. They recognized many common characteristics in this relatively new architectural style and delineated them. Their blog post helped define the architecture for curious architects and helped them understand the underlying philosophy.

Microservices is heavily inspired by the ideas in domain-driven design (DDD), a logical design process for software projects. One concept in particular from DDD, bounded context, decidedly inspired microservices. The concept of bounded context represents a decoupling style. When a developer defines a domain, that ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

Fundamentals of Software Architecture, 2nd Edition

Fundamentals of Software Architecture, 2nd Edition

Mark Richards, Neal Ford
Head First Software Architecture

Head First Software Architecture

Raju Gandhi, Mark Richards, Neal Ford

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781492043447Errata Page