University Microservices Architecture and Applications Report

This report provides a detailed analysis of microservices architecture and its applications within various organizations. It begins with an executive summary highlighting the benefits of microservices, such as improved business processes and customer service optimization. The report delves into the mechanism of microservices, contrasting it with monolithic systems, and explores successful implementations at companies like Netflix, Uber, and Amazon. It examines the principles of service modeling, including SOAP, XML-RPC, and REST, and discusses the challenges in splitting backend monolithic systems, encompassing both technical and organizational hurdles. The report also addresses ethical, legal, and security issues associated with transitioning to microservices. Finally, it concludes with recommendations for the Chief Technology Officer of the Whiteboard Company on integrating microservices architecture into their learning management system across universities. The report aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of microservices architecture, its advantages, and considerations for implementation.

Running head: MICROSERVICES ARCHITECTURE AND ITS APPLICATIONS
MICROSERVICES ARCHITECTURE AND ITS APPLICATIONS
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1MICROSERVICES ARCHITECTURE AND ITS APPLICATIONS
Executive Summary
The microservices architecture are enhancing the business processes in various organizations
worldwide. They are successful in segregating each business activity as a separate application
such that low coupling but high cohesion is maintained in the independent software modules.
This helps the companies to manage their operations effectively and provide its customers
with a wide range of services, thereby gaining optimality in customer services. This report
will specifically define the mechanism of microservices architecture and the associated
benefits and challenges. It will also highlight the security, legal and ethical issues and finally
make recommendations to the Chief Technology Officer of the Whiteboard Company on how
to incorporate microservices architecture in the learning management system across the
universities.

2MICROSERVICES ARCHITECTURE AND ITS APPLICATIONS
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Discussion..................................................................................................................................4
Successful Implementation of Microservice Architecture.....................................................4
Principles of Service Modelling and Technologies...............................................................6
Challenges in Splitting the Backend Monolithic System.......................................................7
Ethical, Legal and Security Issues in Transitioning to Microservice Architecture................9
Conclusion................................................................................................................................10
Recommendation......................................................................................................................11
References................................................................................................................................12

3MICROSERVICES ARCHITECTURE AND ITS APPLICATIONS
Introduction
The software applications nowadays are built as services or suites that are
independently deployable that are flexible in its features and proving to be of great functional
help to the organizations. The current technological innovation where the software systems
are transformed from their monolithic systems to single-function modules that are
autonomous in nature is referred to as microservices architecture or just microservices
(Alshuqayran, Ali & Evans, 2016). These self-regulatory modules of the software possess
well-defined interfaces as well as operations that can be conducted at ease. The microservices
architecture has been highly trending in the recent years because it provides the enterprises to
incorporate an agile look and adopt a continuous testing procedure by DevOps.
Unlike monolithic systems that are built as single cohesive units where making the
slightest changes in code resulted in rebuilding the whole system of the software, in
microservices, since the software modules are independent of each other, changes in the
programming code affects only the particular module and not the whole system (Xu et al.,
2019). The microservices architecture allows for the development of the applications as suites
of separate small services. These independent suites runs their own processes without being
associated with the other. The services can be written in discrete programming languages and
might incorporate distinct techniques of storing their data (Nadareishvili et al., 2016). These
flexible features provided by the microservices helps to build software systems that are
scalable and possesses a dynamic makeover. The API’s are responsible for the connection of
the microservices and continuous testing of these program interfaces helps in validating the
data as well as information flow throughout the different modules of the microservices.

4MICROSERVICES ARCHITECTURE AND ITS APPLICATIONS
Discussion
Successful Implementation of Microservice Architecture
Netflix: The organization of Netflix is one of the oldest users of microservices architecture
and participated in this technological revolution almost ten years ago. They have rewritten all
of their applications to turn their monolithic systems into microservices and thus own a
copyright to their codes and resources. All of these applications are connected by an
application programming interface (API) incorporating a strictly controlled set of rules that
are handled by the software programs (Dragoni et al., 2017). Due to this facility, the
developers of the modules can ensure small or big changes in the different applications
aligning them with the API and need not concern about the functionality of the other
applications.
Due to the building of separate modules, Netflix is able to run its services with
optimum functionality. It incorporates around 700 microservices that separately controls each
of the parts. One application is responsible for keeping a track of the shows that are already
watched, while the other application deducts the monthly subscription fees from the user’s
accounts, again another application runs algorithms to suggest the likable movies of one’s
choice. The benefits achieved by the company is that they do not have to negotiate with the
rights of broadcast with other companies to display a show or manage the worldwide servers
efficiently to provide its customers with shows of maximum quality and speed.
Uber: The mammoth organization of transportation services began its journey in San
Francisco with the monolithic system of services. The single repository was responsible for
creating a match with the riders and the drivers, checking the background payments,
managing the accounting services and other associated services. However, the developers
started facing problem in fixing the software bugs and testing the services became gradually

5MICROSERVICES ARCHITECTURE AND ITS APPLICATIONS
difficult due to the availability of one single repository for the monolithic architecture
(Epstein, 2019). Hence, like other contemporary organizations, Uber started incorporating
microservices architecture and now it has more than 4000 branded microservices and a huge
number of open source systems to enhance the operational activities of their business.
The major introduction of the microservices in the Uber industry was the API
gateway that made it easy for the drivers and the passengers to connect with each other
without any third party monitoring the matches. These API gateways thus are responsible for
managing trips, drivers, and the passengers simultaneously (Niu, Liu & Li, 2018). However,
the trip management, the driver management and the passenger management system are
different units that function differently without involving in each other’s operations and
connecting via API gateways. In addition, a separate billing microservice component exists
that handles the payments of the customers without disturbing the other microservice
features.
Amazon: The largest retail organization of the world started from a small bookstore and
transformed into an e-commerce business platform for selling books, accessories, shoes,
clothing, jewellery, hardware and many other things. However, the company was built as a
two-tier monolithic application in its initial days where the components were in a tightly
coupled system (Xu, Jin & Kim, 2019). With the progress in the different projects of
Amazon, the developers started experiencing problem while changing codes and the
development lifecycle of the software began to take slow steps in bringing effective changes.
Thus, the company executives decided to change their monolithic structure to microservices
and separated the modules as well as their functions.
The Amazon primarily used cloud for their microservices to automate most of their
operations and thus scale the services provided by them to the customers depending upon the

6MICROSERVICES ARCHITECTURE AND ITS APPLICATIONS
trending needs of the business. The two major components of the microservices in Amazon
are the Application Load Balancer (ALB) and the Amazon Container Service (ECS) that
combines to manage the multiple incoming requests of the business logic as well as run the
applications easily (Villamizar et al., 2016). These microservices of Amazon helps to
improve the web-application performances extract information from cloud solutions and
manage the in-memory caches without depending on the in-house databases.
Principles of Service Modelling and Technologies
SOAP: API’s are an important component of the microservices architecture. The different
elements of the applications connect or communicate with each other by following message-
based protocols. One such protocol is SOAP or Simple Object Access Protocol that can be
aligned with various lower level protocols such as the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP).
The microservices architecture developed by various organizations throughout the world does
not rely on sending stringing messages following a sequence (Taušan et al., 2016). They
prefer adopting the message protocol of SOAP that incorporates a header design depicting the
actions that need to be carries out by the SOAP nodes. These nodes in turn transfer the
messages to different platforms for different functions and thus enables functionalities like
addressing issues, providing security and independency in formatting (Lahinta, Haris &
Abdillah, 2017). The three major principles of SOAP are extensibility of security in
platforms, neutrality over any protocol and independence of choosing any programming
languages.
XML-RPC: The service of RPC stands for Remote Procedure Call that signifies the
mechanism to call a function or a certain procedure, which is available in some remote
computer. This technology is much older than Web and allows the application developers to
define interfaces for calling over a network. The interfaces may vary from simple structured
ones to large complex-structured API’s. Hence, XML-RPC that came into the scenario in the

7MICROSERVICES ARCHITECTURE AND ITS APPLICATIONS
year 1998 is one of the easy web-service methodologies that permits the application programs
to make procedure calls over a network (Henkel & Bider, 2019). Now, microservices
incorporates multiple environments working independently as well as cohesively that need
not share their complex data structures but can establish communication amongst them to
enhance the functionality of the operations. XML-RPC allows the modules top connect with
each other and exchange messages even though they belong to distinct data models.
REST: The abbreviated form of Representational State Transfer, REST is popular as a client-
server architecture that is used for designing applications that can accommodate low coupling
and high cohesion and thus deploy efficient web-services to organizations that changed from
their monolithic systems to microservices (Breunig & Götz, 2018). The advantageous part of
using REST is that it does not dictate any guideline about the implementation procedure in
the lower level and only enforces some basic rules at the high-level implementation. REST
simplifies the architecture in microservices by providing a uniform interface amongst the
components or modules that follow the same rules to communicate with each other. It is also
cacheable and thus can derive resources from cache memory for performance improvement
(Megargel, Shankararaman & Walker, 2020). Since it offers for a layered system, the
immediate layer of each component separates from each other and can be replaced anytime
without any obstruction. It also provides the ‘code on demand’ feature where codes can be
downloaded optionally to extend functionality of clients.
Challenges in Splitting the Backend Monolithic System
When an organization decides to shift from its monolithic structure to microservices
architecture it will at first need to break down its applications. While doing so, the single
shared database of the monolithic structures needs to be decoupled into various small and
independent databases according to the different applications. To deploy independently each
of the applications in the microservices structural design, each microservice needs to have a

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database of its own along with their own domain of data (Baškarada, Nguyen & Koronios,
2018). However, all these separate databases need to be connected to a centralised database
such that the applications can communicate and exchange data amongst them that will help in
optimizing the business operations.
Technical Challenges: While moving from a monolithic to a microservices design of
architecture, huge problems lies in segregating the services and creating databases of its own.
Hence, division of the applications concerning the different services needs to be done in
small parts such that it does not affect the operations of the business. The organizations
should implement completely new codes to adopt microservices because redefining codes of
the monolithic structure might give arise to bugs to the features that already exists (Chen, Li
& Li, 2017). This will lead to a chaos that will affect the functionality of the existing system.
However, the replacement with new codes might not be aligned with the existing operations
of the business. Hence, testing must be done at every stage of the new codes to check whether
the codes are effective for the systems or not. The organization also fails to continuously
deploy or integrate the services along with generation and testing of codes (Chen, 2018).
They should keep on integrating and developing simultaneously to effectively implement the
microservices architecture.
Organizational Challenges: The business processes that are adopting the
microservices architecture requires ample amount of time to adapt themselves to the new
structure and its associated functionalities. Every team that handles individual services or
applications face problems in taking ownership over the services due to lack of knowledge
and training. In monolithic structures, the teams were divided as developers, testers, quality
assurance and controllers and so on (Mendonça et al., 2019). However, in case of
microservices, the organizations will face challenges in restructuring their organizational
structure and omit the horizontal borders. They will have to set up teams consisting of all

9MICROSERVICES ARCHITECTURE AND ITS APPLICATIONS
types of expert personnel that will be able to handle databases, develop codes and interfaces
and thus maintain a cohesive approach in successfully managing the change.
Ethical, Legal and Security Issues in Transitioning to Microservice Architecture
While adapting to microservices architecture, the companies will not only be
responsible for making the technological changes but also along with that make sure they
address to the ethical, security and the legal issues as well such that no problem arises after
the implementation of the new technical venture.
Ethical Issues: These issues concerns about handling the new operations in the
workplace by the members. The organizational members might not have the accurate
knowledge in handling the modules well and hence, they will be requiring training programs
to derive an in-depth understanding about the functional processes of the applications (Jarwar
et al., 2018). Moreover, due to the separate functionalities of the modules, the teams handling
them will not be aware of each other’s data and have problems in dealing with the customers.
If the cloud systems are not advanced enough, it will lead to issues in scenarios that are more
ethical.
Legal Issues: The companies before adapting the new architectural design of the
microservices must follow all the legal procedures such as following the compliances and the
regulations of the government. The companies that have their own set of codes for the
microservices might suffer legal issues if the hackers can crack the codes or the algorithms
(Taibi, Lenarduzzi & Pahl, 2017). Moreover, they might face legal issues while buying
services from cloud solution providers. Hence, the companies should follow every legal
procedure if they want to transit from monolithic systems to microservices.
Security Issues: Challenges with security is one of the major issues while
transforming the monolithic systems in an organization to microservices architecture. This is

10MICROSERVICES ARCHITECTURE AND ITS APPLICATIONS
because the functionality of the systems in microservices architecture is conducted majorly
through network systems that are prone to malicious attacks (Zimmermann, 2017). If the
systems are not strengthened with end-to-end strong encryption procedures, the hackers can
easily adapt techniques such as spoofing or phishing or inject malware in the systems to
derive confidential data and use it for maligning the reputation of the organization.
Conclusion
Microservices architecture are trending technological large-scale applications that are
helping the large business organizations to ease out their business activities by separating the
functional operations of the different applications and establishing efficient connectivity and
communication amongst these applications. They help in solving the cascading issues of
developing codes in the monolithic systems and independently deploy modular applications
that are dynamic in nature. However, managing the network of the microservices is one big
issue. If the network systems are not tightly secured the organizations, might incorporate
huge data loss in the market and suffer from ethical issues at a significant rate.
The report discusses about the term ‘microservices architecture’ in the first section
and describes its characteristic features such as incorporating multiple modular components,
decentralised databases, simple routing of messages and so on. In the second section, an
elaborate scenario is described about the three companies- Netflix, Uber and Amazon, about
their shifting from monolithic to microservices design and the how it has added to their
business value. The principles of service modelling of the various web-services or message
protocols are discussed in the next section that helps in integrating the components of the
microservices architecture. Finally, the ethical, legal and security issues are highlighted that
the organizations may suffer to adapt this new technology.

11MICROSERVICES ARCHITECTURE AND ITS APPLICATIONS
Recommendation
While implementing student learning management system by adapting microservices
architecture, the Chief Technology Officer of Whiteboard is recommended to take the
following steps:
 The Whiteboard organization should first segregate its functional operations into
different departments that will each have an application of its own.
 There should be one application that will handle the student portal of each student
enrolled in the university and thus will manage the entire lifecycle of the student.
 There should be a separate enrolment application that will enrol the new students
interested to register themselves in the University for any Course.
 The accounting application is a necessity in the microservices architecture that will
handle the payment of the students regarding their tuition fees.
 A separate application of learning course management will provide the online study
materials and course modules to the students for their respective enrolled courses.
 All the applications should have a database of their own domain that will be
connected centrally through a common server.
 A web-based application protocol will help to establish connection amongst all these
applications and for communicating and exchanging messages.
 The technical and organizational challenges should be taken into consideration before
this technological transition of the systems.
 Finally, the ethical, legal and security issues should also be taken into consideration
by the IT department before implementing microservices architecture in the
universities.

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