Microservice
Microservices split an application into independently deployed small services, each owning its data and logic, communicating via APIs.
Purpose
Decouple the system so services develop, deploy, and scale independently, improving agility.
Mechanism
Each service has its own codebase/database/deployment. They communicate via REST/gRPC/message queues. API contracts drive integration. Benefits: independent scaling, technology heterogeneity, fault isolation. Costs: distributed complexity, operational overhead.
Use cases
- System architecture
- Agile development
- Independent deployment