An extensible data-driven approach for evaluating the quality of microservice architectures

Abstract

Microservice architecture (MSA) is defined as an architectural style where the software system is developed as a suite of small services, each running in its own process and communicating with lightweight mechanisms. The benefits of MSA are many, ranging from an increase in development productivity, to better business-IT alignment, agility, scalability, and technology flexibility. The high degree of microservices distribution and decoupling is, however, imposing a number of relevant challenges from an architectural perspective. In this context, measuring, controlling, and keeping a satisfactory level of quality of the system architecture is of paramount importance.