603 ASSG 1 MICRO SERVICES

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MODULE 2 TOPIC 2 RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIESMODULE 2 TOPIC 2 RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES

Splitting the monolith

Introduction:

As monoliths grow over time, they can become large and unwieldy – and this can

materially slow down development cycles and prevent an organisation from being

competitive as it stalls in bringing new capability to market. It is recognised that a

microservices architecture allows an organisation to be nimbler however untangling

the monolith is also understood to be a task that requires deliberate design, clear

systems thinking and patient ‘untangling’. Newman (2015) outlines several di�erent

tactics that can be used to isolate services which can be teased out from the monolith

though the identi�cation of seams, bounded contexts and transactions. It is well

recognised that this migration is an epic journey as decisions are taken about which

capability to decouple �rst and how to progressively migrate services from the

monolith. This clearly is a complex decomposition task, which depends on decoupling

the correct services. This requires an examination of the current code base to

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determine what seams exist that may make for logical boundaries to services that can

be isolated. However, this is not the only criteria to be considered – team capability is

also an important decisions point (we will discuss this further in Module 3). Pay

attention to both the tools that Newman o�ers, as well as the four reasons that he

gives as to why it makes sense to split the monolith despite the challenges inherent in

decomposition of the existing monolith and the required refactoring. Pay close

attention to the challenges identi�ed by McKendrick (2019) – while it is clear that

there are very many bene�ts to moving from monoliths to microservices architecture,

this is not a simple process and needs to be undertaken with care and deliberation

with every e�ort to be taken to mitigate the challenges.

References

Newman, S. (2015). Building microservices: Designing �ne-grained systems. California, USA: O’Reilly Media. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral-proquest-

com.ezproxy.laureate.net.au/lib/think/reader.action?docID=1938300

McKendrick, J. (2019, March 8). They say that breaking up monolithic systems is hard to do.

ZDNet. Retrieved from https://www.zdnet.com/article/they-say-that-breaking-up- monolithic-systems-is-hard-to-do/

Resources and Activities:

Splitting the monolith

Please watch the following video from the DevOps foundations:

Microservices series:

4.Microservices by examples: Splitting the monolith (3m 47s)

In this short video clip, the presenter walks you through a practice-based

example of how a team analysed a monolith to �nd new ways to structure

future microservices. Please note how they not only looked at the existing

code base to isolate seams of code that could be treated in isolation, but

also paid attention to bounded contexts to identify service boundaries and

also team capability in arriving at logical splits.

Reference:

Stone, L. (2019, February 27). Microservices by examples: Splitting the

monolith. [Video �le]. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/learning-

login/share?

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foundations-microservices%3Ftrk%3Dshare_ent_url&account=56744473

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(https://www.linkedin.com/learning-login/share?

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Splitting the monolith

Please read pp. 79 – 80. Decomposing a monolith is a challenging process –

and in this reading Newman o�er tools and perspectives about how this

can be done successfully. Pay close attention to how Newman identi�es the

concept of ‘seams’ and how this relates to the concept of a ‘bounded

contexts’ and how these o�er a means to identify service boundaries.

Reference:

Newman, S. (2015). Building microservices: Designing �ne-grained systems.

California, USA: O’Reilly Media. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral-

proquest-com.ezproxy.laureate.net.au/lib/think/reader.action?

docID=1938300&ppg=99 (https://ebookcentral-proquest-

com.ezproxy.laureate.net.au/lib/think/reader.action?

docID=1938300&ppg=99)

Reasons to split the monolith

Please read pp. 81 –82. In this section, Newman outlines four reasons to

split the monolith: pace of change, team structure, security and technology.

He makes important notes about how these reasons for splitting the

monolith may in fact be guiding principles in how the monolith should be

decomposed.

Reference:

Newman, S. (2015). Building microservices: Designing �ne-grained systems.

California, USA: O’Reilly Media. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral-

proquest-com.ezproxy.laureate.net.au/lib/think/reader.action?

docID=1938300&ppg=101 (https://ebookcentral-proquest-

com.ezproxy.laureate.net.au/lib/think/reader.action?

docID=1938300&ppg=101)

Tangled dependencies

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Please read pp. 82 -88. After identifying bounded contexts, seams

– tangled dependencies still present challenges. Pay close

attention to how Newman recommends developing an

understanding of the problem (Getting to Grips), and how breaks can be

staged to allow for services to be further decomposed into autonomous

parts. Also, pay close attention to his description of transactional

boundaries and how these may impact on how services may be

decomposed.

Reference:

Newman, S. (2015). Building microservices: Designing �ne-grained systems.

California, USA: O’Reilly Media. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral-

proquest-com.ezproxy.laureate.net.au/lib/think/reader.action?

docID=1938300&ppg=102 (https://ebookcentral-proquest-

com.ezproxy.laureate.net.au/lib/think/reader.action?

docID=1938300&ppg=102)

They say that breaking up monolithic systems is hard to do

This article gives practical and industry-based insights into how challenging

the process of splitting the monolith can be and how the complexity of the

process requires careful and speci�c management of the transition

process.

Reference:

McKendrick, J. (2019, March 8). They say that breaking up monolithic

systems is hard to do. ZDNet. Retrieved from

https://www.zdnet.com/article/they-say-that-breaking-up-monolithic-

systems-is-hard-to-do/ (https://www.zdnet.com/article/they-say-that-

breaking-up-monolithic-systems-is-hard-to-do/)

Additional Learning Resources

If you would like to learn more about the topics covered in this module, here are

some additional resources. These resources will contribute to further develop

understanding of the topics covered. However, these resources are not essential

to complete this module or the assessments associated with this subject.

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The next generation of Health IT

This article gives insight into the value that microservices architecture can

o�er within the context of Health IT systems. The aim is to ground your

understanding within a practice-based context.

Reference:

Nichol, P.B. (20017, February). Monolithic vs. microservices architectures for

innovation. CIO. Retrieved from

https://www.cio.com/article/3163169/monolithic-vs-microservice-

architectures-for-innovation.html

(https://www.cio.com/article/3163169/monolithic-vs-microservice-

architectures-for-innovation.html)

Learning Activity 1: Interactive Knowledge check

Learning Activity 2: Splitting the Monolith - Discussion forum post

Collaborative learning activity - The Process of Splitting a Monolith

Note: The Learning activities above are not part of summative/graded assessment;

however they are designed to prepare you for incremental graded assessment and

expand your learning.

These activities encourage a community learning experience between peers, and

provide opportunities for facilitators to o�er formative feedback, throughout a

module, to the student cohort.

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