What are microservices? List of basic concepts you should know

Microservices is a software architecture approach that has gained significant adoption in recent years due to its impact on scalability, deployment speed, and software development efficiency. Today, it is widely used by companies seeking to modernize applications and align technology with evolving business needs.

Why is microservices architecture attractive for businesses? Because it enables teams to partition applications into independent services, allowing faster deployment, better fault isolation, and continuous delivery without disrupting the entire system.

What are microservices?

Microservices architecture is an architectural style that structures an application as a collection of small, autonomous services, each responsible for a specific business capability.

According to Microservices.io, this approach “enables fast, frequent, and reliable delivery of large, complex applications while allowing organizations to evolve their technology stack independently.”

In a microservices-based system, applications are composed of services that communicate through well-defined APIs. Each service can be developed, deployed, and scaled independently.

Core characteristics of microservices include:

• Highly maintainable and testable services
• Loose coupling between components
• Independent deployment pipelines
• Alignment with business domains and capabilities

This architectural model allows organizations to scale applications efficiently while reducing development bottlenecks.

Key characteristics of microservices

Autonomy

Each microservice operates as an independent unit. Teams can modify, deploy, or scale a service without impacting the rest of the system, enabling continuous improvement and faster iteration cycles.

As highlighted in AWS documentation, “services do not need to share code or internal implementations. Communication occurs exclusively through well-defined APIs.”

Specialization

Each microservice is designed to solve a specific problem or business function. When a service becomes too complex, it can be decomposed into smaller services, improving maintainability and long-term scalability.

AWS emphasizes that this specialization enables teams to evolve individual services without increasing system-wide complexity.

Advantages of microservices architecture

• Improved scalability

Microservices allow organizations to scale only the components that require additional resources. This granular scalability optimizes infrastructure usage and reduces operational costs.

• Better fault isolation

In monolithic systems, a single failure can bring down the entire application. In contrast, microservices isolate failures, significantly reducing system-wide outages.

According to GitLab, independent services make applications more resilient and easier to recover.

• Simplified development and deployment

Development teams can introduce new features or modify existing services without redesigning the entire system, accelerating innovation and reducing technical risk.

• Faster time to market

Independent deployment pipelines enable parallel development, allowing companies to release features faster and respond quickly to market demands.

GitLab notes that teams working on different microservices can deploy updates independently, enabling continuous delivery and long-term system evolution.

Adopting microservices is not just a technical decision—it is a strategic move toward scalable, resilient, and future-ready software systems.

Want to explore how microservices can transform your business? At Rootstack, we have over 10 years of experience supporting global companies in their digital transformation. Contact us to learn more.

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