Monolithic systems were the only choice for e-commerce businesses about 20 years ago. These platforms provide an all-in-one and one-size-fits-all solution for websites, which most likely is not enough for the e-commerce you need to run today. You need a fast and flexible approach so that your business can meet rising customer expectations and stay ahead of your competitors. Microservices is the answer.
Microservices is a software system development method in which different single-function applications are coupled together, just like LEGO bricks. The advantage is that each service can be scaled independently of the others without disrupting the others. Therefore, a microservices framework is highly scalable and you can avoid the bottlenecks of a monolithic architecture (in which all the components are unified in a single central system). With microservices, you will be able to have increased opportunities for customization and personalization, and a more rapid implementation thanks to a decentralized development process.
However, it is not always rainbows and butterflies. Switching to microservices brings some challenges as well.
1. Organizational Changes
You need to manage cross-functional, vertical teams who can work together to develop and maintain the site for different microservices. This often results in an organizational change, which most businesses may find difficult to deal with by themselves.
2. Infrastructure Changes
Another potential consideration of switching to a microservice system is that it might change the infrastructure and tools you need to monitor the different microservices, conduct troubleshooting and get rid of bugs.
At Langia we have extensive experience transforming monolithic webshops running on Hybris to lean microservice-oriented versions with SAP Commerce Cloud supported by custom microservices, or even SAP Commerce hosted in custom infrastructures like AWS or Azure supported by microservices implemented using Play, Springboot, or similar technologies. We are happy to provide more details from our successful real-life customer cases. Contact us today for more information!