Microservices

What exactly are microservices?  Just a new name for service-oriented architecture (SOA), which everyone was talking about a few years ago, but you don't hear as much about these days? Or, in fact, the miracle solution to develop and operate modern applications flexibly and in a scalable manner? It's not always easy to distinguish between hype and genuine innovation.

Ergon makes a conscious effort not to follow every technical trend. We're far more concerned with understanding the benefits of a software program for our customers and developing a solution that's custom-made for their situation.  Of course, we always keep an eye on the current trends and possibilities and evaluate them for use in our projects.

We consider microservices to be an interesting solution strategy. However, we are a long way off recommending them as a standardised approach for every new project. It doesn't make sense to saddle ourselves with additional complexity, if the specific benefits of microservices don't outweigh the additional expenditure.

If you search for negative experiences with microservices online, you won't have to look far. It's obvious that people tend to neglect to consider the fact that successful solutions based on microservices urgently require various technical practices: development in small, independent teams, consistent modularisation, well-defined interfaces and a fully developed process for continuous delivery and administration of a large number of services. Ergon has been taking care of many of these practices for years. The electronic train assistant (ELAZ), for example, comprises various small applications that synchronise with each other. Another example is the TrueWealth solution, whereby we install new releases in a cloud environment at the push of a button. This competence, which is built up over many projects, means that Ergon can continue to give sound advice, even in the age of microservices.