What is microservices architecture?

This is an approach to software development where the application is structured as a collection of small, autonomous services. Each service focuses on a specific business function and interacts with other services through lightweight mechanisms, often over network protocols.

Key characteristics:

• Decomposition: Splitting a monolithic application into smaller, manageable parts.
• Autonomy: Services can be developed, deployed, and scaled independently.
• Focus: Each service addresses a narrow, specific task.
• Distribution: Services can operate on different machines or clusters.

Advantages include better scalability, resilience (failure of one service does not lead to the failure of the entire application), flexibility in choosing technologies for different services, and faster development and deployment.

Disadvantages: increased complexity of managing a distributed system, the need for reliable interaction and monitoring mechanisms, and potential issues with data consistency between services.