Colloquium Computer Science-Olaf Zimmermann

Title:
(Micro-)Service Design as a set of Architectural Patterns and Decisions

Abstract:
Service orientation is a key enabler for cloud-native application development. Microservices have emerged as a state-of-the-art implementation approach for the realization of the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) style, promoting modern software engineering practices such as continuous delivery and DevOps.

Designing services interfaces to be expressive and evolvable is challenging. Deciding for suited granularities is a complex task confronted with conflicting forces; one size does not fit all. Domain-Driven Design (DDD) can help identify service boundaries. However, service designers seek concrete, actionable guidance beyond “turn each bounded context from DDD into a microservice”. Interface signatures and message representations need particular attention as they influence service quality; many of the related Architectural Decisions (ADs) recur.

This presentation first recapitulates SOA principles, microservices tenets and DDD patterns. It then reports on the ongoing compilation of Microservices API Patterns (MAP) and identifies a set of ADs that recur during service decomposition. Finally, the presentation highlights related open research and development challenges.