Microservices and Layers

[Arun Nair]

Hi,

   Is it recommended that you follow a layered architecture while developing microservices?  For example at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/architecture/microservices/microservice-ddd-cqrs-patterns/microservice-application-layer-web-api-design they talk about application layer.

This is also mentioned at https://medium.com/microservices-in-practice/microservices-layered-architecture-88a7fc38d3f1.

My understanding was that there are no physical layers in microservices.  Is this wrong?

Thanks,

Arun

[Chris Richardson]

Arun,

The primary principle is that services (and the teams that own them) should be organized around business capabilities.

They are vertical slices.

I've seen architectures that have a technically layered architecture:

• Entity services - entity services that wrap the DB
• Business logic services
• Coordination services

This kind of technical layering (of backend services) is generally an anti-pattern.

Perhaps the one exception is that you still might have a presentation layer, e.g. web application that generates HTML pages.

Chris

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[Dinkar Gupta]

Adding to what Chris mentioned (completely agree), layering is perfectly ok within design of the capability. Follow responsibility layers with a capability (hence microservice) to organize its internal design). The responsibility maybe to offer an API (say headless servixe), presentation (for a f2b MS, translational (a service which needs to deal with integration scenarios or handling some logical layering implicit to the design of the MS (e.g. capture data, process it and publish results as three distinct responsibilities). All these are just examples so maybe more specific scenarios will apply to your case.

Just avoid layering of MS itself into artificial layering inspired by client server types layering thought process. I have seen people using terms like core services layer, composite service layer and channel service layer (even API MS layer :-)) and that is definitely not recommended. Vertical decomposition aligned to capabilities tends to deliver better.

[Arun Naik]

Chris,

  Thank you for clarifying this.  Incidentally I also found an article at https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar/techniques/layered-microservices-architecture  which states "We've observed a number of organizations who've adopted a layered microservices architecture, which in some ways is a contradiction in terms".

 I started the microservice  with a layered architecture, but after some time, it did not make sense, with my very limited exposure to writing  microservices.  Hence wanted to check with the community.  The presentation layer is still  kept separate.

Thank you,

Arun

On Tuesday, April 28, 2020 at 6:17:44 PM UTC+5:30, Chris Richardson wrote:

Arun,

The primary principle is that services (and the teams that own them) should be organized around business capabilities.

They are vertical slices.

I've seen architectures that have a technically layered architecture:

• Entity services - entity services that wrap the DB
• Business logic services
• Coordination services

This kind of technical layering (of backend services) is generally an anti-pattern.

Perhaps the one exception is that you still might have a presentation layer, e.g. web application that generates HTML pages.

Chris

On Mon, Apr 27, 2020 at 5:03 PM Arun Nair <arun...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

   Is it recommended that you follow a layered architecture while developing microservices?  For example at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/architecture/microservices/microservice-ddd-cqrs-patterns/microservice-application-layer-web-api-design they talk about application layer.

This is also mentioned at https://medium.com/microservices-in-practice/microservices-layered-architecture-88a7fc38d3f1.

My understanding was that there are no physical layers in microservices.  Is this wrong?

Thanks,

Arun

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