Microservices and big data start to get closer
Database development and management are changing dramatically, as microservices gain wider use in the enterprise.
That’s according to Zhamak Dehghani, principal consultant at Chicago-based ThoughtWorks, a global technology consulting firm specializing in Agile methods, distributed systems and open source software adoption. The firm has been active in bringing together microservices and big data.
Microservices bear some resemblance to a once-pervasive industry trend called SOA, or service-oriented architecture. Both capitalize on a general move away from monolithic computer architecture.
While it is still early, microservices are expected to make continued inroads. By 2022, according to analyst firm IDC, 90% of all apps will include microservices architectures.
The move to microservices — and closely associated Kubernetes and software containers — has been cited as a factor in IBM’s plans to acquire Red Hat and the merger of Hadoop vendors Cloudera and Hortonworks.
Accompanying the microservices wave are DevOps, cloud computing, domain-driven design and NoSQL databases. All these technologies and practices find special favor, as organizations try to move new applications into production more quickly and update them often once they are there.
Dehghani, who worked as a software engineer and architect during 20 years in distributed computing, embedded systems and communications, has focused at ThoughtWorks on applying domain-driven design concepts in operational systems.
Using domain-driven design and microservices, Dehghani said, developers address a business problem first, and then employ suitable technology to build or improve apps. That is instead of doing things the other way around, with technologies leading the way.
Such techniques drove greater use of NoSQL databases that were especially fit for specific purposes, compared to more general relational databases. ThoughtWorks was among the organizations helping to drive NoSQL’s ascent and, similarly, the growth of interest in low-latency, globally deployed SQL databases.
At the consultancy, Dehghani contributes to the ThoughtWorks Technology Radar, a technology scorecard that has been a model for users assessing open source software microservices options.
Dehghani maintained that microservices are moving responsibility for databases from central IT to developers who are working as part of lines of business. “Businesses used to put the developers in one tier and the users in another. Now, as you see a move from monoliths to microservices, you see a change in how we organize IT,” she said.
