The Significance of Microservices Architecture and Cloud-Native Approaches for Business Growth

Overview

CodeNOW's CEO Petr Svoboda presented at the Cloud Computing Conference in Prague, discussing how microservices and cloud-native development drive organizational transformation and business expansion.

What is a Domain?

A domain represents a collection of elements defined by specific criteria. Within organizations, different domains—such as marketing, operations, and services—interact with the same concepts using different terminology. For instance, marketing refers to prospects as "leads" rather than customers, illustrating how domains shape operational language and data models.

The challenge emerges when business domains misalign with IT systems. "A CRM system stores customer data, and KYC data is also kept there," creating integration complications. The solution involves establishing one-to-one alignment between business domains and IT systems, enabling single-system changes rather than multi-system coordination.

How Software is Made

Independent Value Streams

Successful projects depend on independent value streams aligned with specific business domains. Vertical alignment—where teams focus on clear outcomes while maintaining complete control over data, functions, stakeholders, budgets, and operations—outperforms horizontal processes spanning multiple domains.

Reducing Operational Bottlenecks

Development teams often experience delays waiting for centralized IT operations to provision databases or grant network access. As the presentation notes, "Over-reliance on centralized tools can create bottlenecks," with developers spending time on ticketing systems rather than productive work.

Domains vs. Microservices: Structuring for Scalability

Single Domains, Multiple Microservices

A single domain can house multiple microservices, enabling granular functionality, independent scaling, deployment flexibility, technology diversity, and fault isolation. The key principle is avoiding structural decisions until fully understanding the problem.

Technological Heterogeneity

Organizations benefit from microservice flexibility. When a company hired a vendor to build a Python-based chatbot microservice but lacked in-house Python expertise, they adapted by supporting both Python and Java within the container.

Fault Isolation

Unlike traditional service-oriented architectures, "microservices are designed to operate independently," containing all necessary data and functionality within their boundaries. This isolation ensures one service's failure doesn't compromise the entire system.

Size and Responsibility

A microservice should maintain a single responsibility with consistent internal terminology. Each microservice must own its state and operate autonomously in dynamic cloud environments with frequently changing API addresses.

Development teams require:

• Self-service capabilities and full accountability
• Cluster management and deployment oversight
• Knowledge-sharing practices preventing redundant learning

Organizations should encourage safe experimentation through demo applications and standardized practices before production deployment.

Organizing Teams in Microservice Architecture

Team Topologies methodology addresses both desired system states and necessary organizational structure changes. Large organizations may require years or decades for complete transitions.

Efficiency increases when teams leverage existing platforms and shared services. Rather than having multiple teams independently build service discovery solutions, organizations should standardize and centralize these capabilities across departments.

Why Microservices?

Organizations adopt microservices to deliver software "faster, more frequently, and with higher quality," while improving developer experience and organizational resilience. However, effective adoption requires measurement and careful management of critical in-house functions including:

• Architectural vision
• Software delivery processes
• Team organization
• Product and service design
• Company culture

Does Everything Need Microservices?

No. Stable system components can remain monolithic while flexible, frequently-changing business areas transition to microservices. Essential microservice characteristics include:

• Well-testable independent functionality
• Loosely coupled asynchronous communication
• Failure resilience without permanent connection dependencies

CodeNOW: Streamlining Modern Development

CodeNOW, a multi-cloud and hybrid cloud platform, addresses modern software development complexities by enabling:

• Greater development and deployment agility
• Higher software quality through standardized processes
• Faster feature and service delivery

The platform accelerates transitions from monolithic systems to microservices architectures, improving operational efficiency and driving business growth. CodeNOW helped Packeta transform from monolithic to microservices architecture, achieving faster releases and scalable development processes.

Key Takeaways

• Align business domains with IT systems for optimal efficiency
• Empower teams with autonomy and self-service capabilities
• Use microservices selectively for flexibility-requiring components
• Invest in team organization and knowledge sharing
• Measure and continuously improve software delivery outcomes

Learn more: Watch Petr Svoboda's complete presentation on YouTube