µService Service Size

Being at the JAX London Conference last week, I got some useful insights into the litmus test of correct Micro Service Architecture: The right size of a service. Thanks to James Lewis I got the right tools for benchmarking: Pizza, Heads and Green Squares¹.

Well, with this info in my back-pack, I returned home and summoned a meeting of our company architects, bringing up the topic. But as it often happens returning home from a conference in an enthusiastic mood, I was confronted with fear, uncertainty and doubt. We had hot discussions on how to find the right policy for us, being a big company; unfortunately not a Micro Brewery.

In the end we found the right way to manoeuvre through this rough architectural waters, a solution that will enable to build state-of-the-art systems, as well as mitigate risks coming with too much revolution: We will build Milliservices – that would be about right for us. There were also voices to build Centiservices, but as lead architect I had to decline this as being not innovative enough — it's only a small step from that to a Mono(lithic)service.

 

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¹) This is not easy to explain. It is a complicated relativistic approch sliding from monoliths to microservices using square-shrinking techniques. If James once publishes this paper I will report back.