In the beginning, there was the big, bad monolith that did not want to change. Then along came Netflix and said let’s break the monolith apart into the small pieces. These pieces could then be put into the containers and shipped off to the Cloud to be easily scaled up or down, depending on the demand.
These Lego brick-like pieces called “microservices” and they are supposed to make it as easy to scale SAP systems as to open more cash registers at a supermarket. Except when not.
Turns out monolith is not necessarily bad and microservices are not always great. In this interview, the author of Monolith To Microservices book Sam Newman talks not just about how to break up a monolith but also when you probably shouldn’t. This quote could not have been truer in the SAP world that is sometimes too tech-obsessed after being tech-starved:
We focus on the tech tool, not the thing that the tech tool lets you do.
When considering microservices for your next project, think what they would “let you do” and if they’re the right solution in the first place. To avoid, you know, a megadisaster. JP
This story appears in Issue 20 of The Boring Enterprise Nerdletter
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