Microservices on Azure
Build resilient, highly scalable and distributed applications to deliver value faster.
What are microservices?
Microservices are an architectural approach to building applications where each core function, or service, is built and deployed independently. Microservice architecture is distributed and loosely coupled, so one component’s failure won’t break the whole app. Independent components work together and communicate with well-defined API contracts. Build microservice applications to meet rapidly changing business needs and bring new functionalities to market faster.
Easily manage new feature releases, updates and bug fixes in individual components without redeploying the entire application. Automate software delivery workflow with a continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipeline such as GitHub Actions.
Scale individual services and subsystems based on resource needs without scaling out the entire application. Pack a higher density of services into a single host using a container orchestrator such as Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) or Azure Red Hat OpenShift.
Replace or retire individual services without affecting the entire application. Unlike the traditional monolithic application model, microservices platforms use patterns such as circuit breaking to tolerate individual service failure, improving security and reliability. To make this easier, install a service mesh using the Service Mesh Interface (SMI) for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) or Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh for Azure Red Hat OpenShift.
Choose your team’s preferred deployment approach, language, microservices platform and programming model for each service. Publish your microservice APIs for internal and external consumption while managing crosscutting concerns such as authentication, authorisation, throttling, caching, transformation and monitoring with Azure API Management.
Explore microservice solution architectures
Building microservices on Azure
Learn what microservices are, including benefits and challenges.
Using domain analysis to model microservices
Get a set of well-designed microservices using the domain-driven design (DDD) framework.
Identifying microservice boundaries
Start with a carefully designed domain model to reason about the right size of a microservice.
Design patterns for microservices
Explore design patterns that help mitigate some of the challenges that arise with microservices.
Building a CI/CD pipeline for microservices
Create a good CI/CD process to achieve faster and more reliable release cycles.
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) solution journey
Learn about AKS, align your organisation around roles and responsibilities, and deploy production-ready workloads.
Learn more about products and services for microservices architecture
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
Highly available, secure and fully managed Kubernetes service
Azure Red Hat OpenShift
Fully managed Red Hat OpenShift service, jointly operated with Red Hat
Azure functions
An event-driven serverless compute platform that also solves complex orchestration problems
Azure API Management
Hybrid, multi-cloud management platform for APIs across all environments
Azure Cosmos DB
Fast NoSQL database with open APIs for any scale
Azure Container Registry
A registry of Docker and Open Container Initiative (OCI) images and artifacts
Customers are doing great things with microservices
Episerver evolves its platform and capabilities in Azure
Nate Barad, Senior Director of Product Marketing"We've seen a dramatic boost in our time to value. We've developed and released more than 50 upgrades in the last year, giving our customers a huge advantage in quickly launching new digital experiences."
Pet care leader revamps referral system in Azure
Adam Lind, Vice President of Software Development"We wanted to build cloud-native applications to supplement the existing application. Azure made it easy to ramp up."
50 per cent faster development-to-deployment cycle
Joseph Cleetus, Business Transformational Manager"We could bring down the maintenance costs without affecting customer service… by building a robust microservices architecture that was highly scalable, resilient, and secure."
EY innovates with container-based architecture
Pablo Cebro, Director, Platform Engineering, Client Technology"By using Azure, we've been able to develop and deploy solutions faster and with more confidence across a wide range of infrastructures."
Start building microservice applications
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