Microservices Architecture

Distributed system design for scalable, maintainable applications

Overview

Microservices architecture is a design approach that structures an application as a collection of loosely coupled, independently deployable services. Each service is responsible for a specific business capability and communicates through well-defined APIs.

Core Principles

Single Responsibility

Each service focuses on one business capability

Decentralized

Services manage their own data and business logic

Fault Isolation

Failure in one service doesn't cascade to others

Technology Agnostic

Services can use different technologies and languages

Key Patterns

API Gateway

Single entry point for client requests, handling routing, authentication, and rate limiting

Service Discovery

Mechanism for services to find and communicate with each other dynamically

Circuit Breaker

Prevents cascading failures by monitoring service health and failing fast

Event Sourcing

Store state changes as events for audit trails and system reconstruction

AWS Implementation

Compute & Orchestration

  • ECS/EKS - Container orchestration
  • Lambda - Serverless functions
  • Fargate - Serverless containers

Communication

  • API Gateway - API management
  • SQS/SNS - Messaging services
  • EventBridge - Event routing

Data & Storage

  • RDS - Relational databases
  • DynamoDB - NoSQL database
  • ElastiCache - In-memory caching

Challenges & Solutions

Distributed System Complexity

Solution: Implement comprehensive monitoring, logging, and distributed tracing

Data Consistency

Solution: Use eventual consistency patterns and saga transactions

Network Latency

Solution: Optimize service boundaries and implement caching strategies

Infrastructure as Code Samples

CloudFormation Templates

ECS Microservices with CloudFormation

Complete microservices architecture using ECS, ALB, and service discovery with CloudFormation templates

GitHub Repository

AWS Microservices Deployment Options

Multiple deployment patterns for microservices including ECS, EKS, and Lambda with CloudFormation

GitHub Repository

EKS Microservices Workshop

Kubernetes-based microservices on EKS with service mesh, monitoring, and CI/CD pipelines

GitHub Repository

Terraform Modules

Terraform ECS Module

Production-ready ECS cluster setup for containerized microservices with auto-scaling and load balancing

GitHub Repository

Terraform EKS Module

Comprehensive EKS cluster configuration for Kubernetes-based microservices with security best practices

GitHub Repository

API Gateway Terraform Module

API Gateway setup for microservices with authentication, rate limiting, and monitoring capabilities

GitHub Repository

AWS Whitepapers & Documentation

Microservices on AWS

Comprehensive guide to implementing microservices architecture on AWS with best practices and patterns

AWS Whitepaper

AWS Microservices Architecture Center

Collection of microservices patterns, reference architectures, and implementation guides

AWS Architecture Center

Well-Architected Microservices Lens

AWS Well-Architected Framework guidance specifically for microservices architectures

AWS Documentation