Strategy First: How to do Microservices deployment on Azure Right?

Microservices as the industry considers it to be sure smaller chunks of code written to execute a specific task. Every small piece of code attribute to a particular service and is a whole in itself. For instance, if you plan to create a business store online, you would require several pages, payment portal, sign up forms, etc. Instead of writing one single application to carry out all of the tasks, microservices deploy an infrastructure where you have a combination of autonomous tasks that can integrate to build the final application.

The reason why Enterprises are readily switching to microservices kind of development is because of the flexibility and agility offered by the end application. However, to reap the benefits of architecture, it is important to implement it right. The development of microservices is an arduous process, requiring utter precision. That is where Microsoft Azure comes into the picture. Yet again, adopting the right deployment strategy for microservices is important. Let’s see how to do so -

Defining Azure Service Fabric

Microsoft Azure has this Azure Service fabric platform that eases the process of designing and developing microservices. As a matter of fact, the platform takes care of the complex infrastructure, allowing the developers to focus on the Azure Service Fabric Platform as a Service. Each service is self-contained and independent which means that updating, modifying and even deleting one of them doesn't affect the application on a whole.

Azure Service Fabric is capable of understanding the infrastructure as well as the needs of the deployed application, facilitating automated upscaling and upgrading. Also, it allows the application to self-heal from errors, negating the need of Azure developers to specifically fix faults. In order to unleash the true potential of Azure Service Fabric, creating the right deployment strategy for microservices is a must.

Using Azure Service Fabric as a platform to build Microservices

Earlier when Microsoft decided to make a shift from offering fused products to supporting self-contained services, Service Fabric rose to power. Further, the integration of services such as Azure Cosmo DB and Azure SQL Database with Azure Fabric added to its popularity and emerged as Azure Service Fabric Platform as a Service.

If we define the above, it is a platform tailored to streamline the problems associated with developing and deploying complex services. It accounts for efficient provisioning of resources so that every team member could contribute to solving issues adopting the microservice approach.

Building Microservices on Azure outlines a few best practices:

• Start with domain analysis which specifies the business domain and the boundaries of the developed service.
• Opt for decentralization leaving no room for code sharing.
• Enable loose coupling and high cohesion.
• Adopt resiliency strategies to negate failures from cascading services.
• Use API management to reveal the backend services and decouple the application from the client-side.
• Adopt an event driven approach for better execution and synchronization.