An Expert Interview Study on Areas of Microservice Design

Abstract

Microservices are single-responsibility units that are implemented in various technologies by independent, cross-cutting teams. A shift to a microservice architecture therefore touches many different areas, including system design, organizational structures, and runtime infrastructure. To investigate the importance of different areas of microservice design, we interviewed 10 microservice domain experts to find out which design areas are relevant for microservices, how important they are, and why they are important. This paper presents the resulting microservice design areas, assessments of their importance, and rationales for the provided assessments.