Method for Designing Scalable Microservice-based Application Systematically: A Case Study

Microservice is a new transformation of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) which is gaining momentum in both academic and industry. The success of microservice began when giant companies like Netflix used them as a service architecture for the purpose of serving customers. Monolithic architecture used by Netflix previously was no longer able to cope with business development and it is difficult to scale to meet user demands. Although Netflix has been successful with microservice architecture, there is no systematic method introduced to produce microservice. Academic studies related to microservice are still in the early stages and have not yet reached maturity. Microservice is seen to require a method that helps organizations to systematically design microservices and replicate the success achieved by Netflix. In forming a method for this systematic microservice then the methods for building an existing microservice are studied. Based on the Design Science Research method, two research artefacts have been produced. The first artefact is a systematic design of microservice that has four main steps. The second artefact is the instantiation by applying the proposed microservice design method to the case studies, namely, MyFlix. Next the evaluation is made on the new method produced by obtaining expert opinions through the process of demonstration and interviewing. The expert assessment results found that the proposed method was able to produce a systematic microservice design based on the six proposed principles and the four main steps. This method can also produce a complete feature microservice such as cohesive, loose coupling, distributed and decentralized that will contribute to the production of scalable system.

@article{Ghani2018,
  title     = {Method for Designing Scalable Microservice-based Application Systematically: A Case Study},
  journal   = {International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications},
  volume    = {9},
  number    = {8},
  year      = {2018},
  publisher = {The Science and Information Organization},
  author    = {Ahmad Tarmizi Abdul Ghani and Mohamad Shanudin Zakaria},
  doi       = {10.14569/IJACSA.2018.090817},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.14569/IJACSA.2018.090817}
}