Decision Models for Selecting Patterns and Strategies in Microservices Systems and their Evaluation by Practitioners

TL;DR

This paper introduces decision models to help microservices practitioners select appropriate patterns and strategies across design areas, validated through interviews with global industry professionals.

Contribution

It presents novel decision models for microservices pattern selection across four key design areas, evaluated by practitioners for effectiveness.

Findings

Practitioners found the models familiar and understandable.

Models were considered complete and useful.

Evaluation confirmed the models as effective decision guides.

Abstract

Researchers and practitioners have recently proposed many Microservices Architecture (MSA) patterns and strategies covering various aspects of microservices system life cycle, such as service design and security. However, selecting and implementing these patterns and strategies can entail various challenges for microservices practitioners. To this end, this study proposes decision models for selecting patterns and strategies covering four MSA design areas: application decomposition into microservices, microservices security, microservices communication, and service discovery. We used peer-reviewed and grey literature to identify the patterns, strategies, and quality attributes for creating these decision models. To evaluate the familiarity, understandability, completeness, and usefulness of the decision models, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 24 microservices practitioners from 12 countries across five continents. Our evaluation results show that the practitioners found the decision models as an effective guide to select microservices patterns and strategies.