Break up with your monolith
Modern applications are composed of small, independent building blocks, called microservices, that are easier to develop, deploy, and maintain. With microservices, applications are deployed as decoupled components that can be released and updated independently. You don’t need to refactor your entire architecture to benefit - decoupling applications at any scale can reduce the impact of changes, making it easier to update and faster to release new features. With microservices, communicating between decoupled components becomes essential to building a successful architecture. There are several options, including application programming interfaces (APIs), queues, topics, and more.
Enroll in AWS free digital training to watch the introductory video about decoupling your architecture into microservices and communicating between decoupled components.
Modern applications are composed of small, independent building blocks that are easier to develop, deploy, and maintain. Microservices are one example of a decoupled application architecture. With microservices, the entire application is composed of small independent services, but you don’t need to refactor your entire architecture to benefit. Decoupling applications at any scale can reduce the impact of changes, making it easier to update and ultimately release new features faster.
Enroll in AWS free digital training to watch the training video to get started decoupling your architecture into microservices.
Communication is key
What is an API?
An Application Programming Interface (API) is a set of functions and procedures that enable communication between disparate software applications. Popular API uses include enabling the implementation of libraries and frameworks across languages, specifying the interface between an application and an operating system, and defining the interface through which the application interacts with a third-party.
Learn how to create, monitor, and manage APIs with API Gateway.
What is a message queue?
Message queues provide a lightweight buffer that temporarily stores messages and endpoints that allow software components to connect to the queue in order to send and receive messages. The messages are usually small and can be things like requests, replies, error messages, or just plain information. Message queues can significantly simplify coding microservices, while improving performance, reliability, and scalability.
Learn how to create message queues with Amazon SQS and Amazon MQ.
How do you coordinate decoupled application components?
When you’ve got 3 or more decoupled components running together, you’ll want to start thinking about how to manage the workflow so you can build and update the application quickly. At AWS, we do this with AWS Step Functions. Using Step Functions, you can design and run workflows that stitch together services such as AWS Fargate and Amazon SQS into feature-rich applications.
Learn how to build workflows using AWS Step Functions.
What is publish/subscribe messaging?
Publish/subscribe (pub/sub) messaging provides instant event notifications for decoupled applications. With pub/sub, you can fan-out messages to different parts of a system asynchronously. Unlike message queues, which batch messages until they are retrieved, message topics transfer messages with no or very little queuing and push them out immediately to all subscribers.
Learn how to use publish/subscribe messaging with Amazon SNS.
What is an event bus?
An event bus allows microservices to communicate without knowing about each other. An event bus receives a stream of data from event sources, and by setting up routing rules, you can determine where to send your data to build applications that react in real-time. With Amazon EventBridge, you can connect microservices using data from your own applications, SaaS applications, and AWS services.
Learn how to connect your applications with Amazon EventBridge.