A Decision Model for Selecting Patterns and Strategies to Decompose Applications into Microservices

TL;DR

This paper introduces a decision model to assist practitioners in selecting suitable patterns and strategies for decomposing applications into microservices, addressing the challenges in microservices architecture design.

Contribution

It presents a comprehensive decision model based on literature to guide the selection of microservices decomposition patterns and strategies.

Findings

A curated set of patterns and strategies for microservices decomposition.

A decision model integrating quality attributes for pattern selection.

Guidelines to improve microservices architecture design decisions.

Abstract

Microservices Architecture (MSA) style is a promising design approach to develop software applications consisting of multiple small and independently deployable services. Over the past few years, researchers and practitioners have proposed many MSA patterns and strategies covering various aspects of microservices design, such as application decomposition. However, selecting appropriate patterns and strategies can entail various challenges for practitioners. To this end, this study proposes a decision model for selecting patterns and strategies to decompose applications into microservices. We used peer-reviewed and grey literature to collect the patterns, strategies, and quality attributes for creating this decision model.