What are microservices and when to use them

Short answer

Microservices split an application into small, independently deployable services that communicate over the network. Use them when teams and scale demand autonomy, but accept the operational complexity. For deployment packaging, see how to build a docker image. For infrastructure choices, see how to choose a cloud provider.

Steps

1. Identify bounded contexts in your application
2. Extract services around business capabilities
3. Define APIs and communication patterns
4. Implement independent CI/CD pipelines
5. Add observability, service discovery, and centralized logging

Tips

• Start with a modular monolith before splitting prematurely
• Use containers and orchestration to manage deployment complexity
• For cost control, review how to design for cloud cost optimization