Chapter 2. Planning a Migration
It’s all too easy to dive straight into the nitty-gritty technical sides of monolithic decomposition—and this will be the focus of the rest of the book! But first we really need to explore several less technical issues. Where should you start the migration? How should you manage the change? How do you bring others along on the journey? And the important question to be asked early on—should you even use microservices in the first place?
Understanding the Goal
Microservices are not the goal. You don’t “win” by having microservices. Adopting a microservice architecture should be a conscious decision, one based on rational decision-making. You should be thinking of migrating to a microservice architecture in order to achieve something that you can’t currently achieve with your existing system architecture.
Without having a handle on what you are trying to achieve, how are you going to inform your decision-making process about what options you should take? What you are trying to achieve by adopting microservices will greatly change where you focus your time, and how you prioritize your efforts.
It will also help you avoid becoming a victim of analysis paralysis—being overburdened by choices. You also risk falling into a cargo cult mentality, just assuming that “If microservices are good for Netflix, they’re good for us!”
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