Improving Client Experience with Microservice Architecture

Cutting-edge technology has brought a paradigm shift in customer expectations and the experience of a product or service. Every technical advancement translates into better, more dependable and quicker delivery of products and services. Companies like Netflix, Amazon, and Uber stay ahead of the curve because of how swiftly they have adapted to and adopted changes. The latest change has been migrating to microservices architecture from a monolithic architecture.

understanding Microservice architecture

Before we understand the implications and benefits of a microservice architecture, let us delve a little into what a monolithic architecture means and how it differs from the former.

Monolithic uses a single block to store all the software components like user interface, data logic and business layer of an application. These components are coupled together. While this is a simple architecture and is beneficial during a company’s nascent stages, problems arise when the company needs to be agile and flexible to meet the surge in consumer demands. The reason is even if a single unit or business capability needs to undergo a few changes or scaled up per customer demand, the entire structure will need to be modified. The process is not just time-consuming but also more complex as the company grows in size and expands business. In contrast, a microservice architecture breaks down a monolithic architecture into several manageable independent pieces bound together by a UPI or similar interface.

Consider time-bound companies like pharmaceuticals or the food industry, where several iterations are needed to get a drug right or push a line of products high in demand during a particular season. Here’s where microservice architecture plays a vital role. Since each business capability is a separate unit with a user interface, data and business logic, any iteration is easily implemented, tested, and deployed. It can even be scaled up independently, reducing the cost of resources and time.

Features of a Microservice architecture:

1. Agility in responding to market trends

Market trends change rapidly. For companies in the e-commerce industry, time to market is vital while meeting consumer expectations. With a microservice architecture, new ideas can be conceptualized, tested, and deployed within a short time.

2. Ability to leverage employee skill-set

The microservice architecture allows you to have separate units for exclusive services such as payment, promotions, recommended product lists, etcetera. Hence, developers with specific domain expertise can work on a particular service, innovate, improve, and increase customer satisfaction.

3. Coding and Testing simplified

It is more efficient to code for a single unit even when it needs to be scaled up or improved. The scope for error decreases to a large extent. Similarly, testing individual units is less tedious. The architecture can be understood and modified even by new developers. Hence, there’s no loss of time during handovers.

Walgreens used this architecture to improve its customer loyalty reward system. The system awards customers reward points for fitness practices. Tracking such data would have been cumbersome in a monolithic architecture. It created an API using microservices that allows a third party to collect and send the data creating a win-win situation.

Facebook depends heavily on targeted advertising and, thereby, on accurate customer profiling. SAP partnered with Facebook to map the customer’s online and offline journey with great precision and speed. It was possible with the use of microservice architecture.

Factors to consider before migrating to a microservice architecture

Adopting new technology is needed to keep up with the times. However, as a precursor, one should understand the company’s goals and objectives and establish the need for the technology. For instance, if the monolithic architecture isn’t complex in the first place, you need not consider microservices.

Once you have established the need for a microservice architecture, you need to ensure the following prerequisites:

• Identify business capabilities that can be used as microservice. Ideally, every business capability needs to have a specific and unique outcome.
• A microservice must be able to access all the necessary components within the unit. There cannot be shared access between any units.
• While newer methods and updates occur, the interface should support older ones until the final migration happens to avoid system glitches and crashes.
• Implementing Microservices requires an efficient team of developers. The business experts must work hand in hand with the technical team to meet the objectives.

If your company needs a more flexible system to meet consumer demands and stay ahead of competitors, it’s time to consider microservices. Talk to our experts to discuss how we can help you with seamless migration.