As culture constantly shows us, monoliths are a tricky thing to deal with. (credit: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM))
Imagine one huge, monolithic relational database—say, a MySQL or Oracle installation—squatting in the middle of an organization's business like Jabba the Hut. The big blob is kind of comforting. Its massive gut keeps all the data all in one place, making it an attractive integration platform.
The problem is that the blob only speaks the language of structured data: SQL. Integrating it with non-relational and unstructured data can be an adventure. And because of its size and structure, adapting it to new tasks can be slow going at best. Unfortunately, nowadays, such blobs must move.
The world of apps is in constant flux and, with it, so are the demands on data. APIs are constantly changing to meet those demands (a social media connection here, a new mobile platform there). But throughout all this, core business can't be bogged down; it has to move fast. And that's where microservices—the dissection of the data monolith into agile little services—come in.
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