Few months ago Amazon Prime Video has moved its services from microservices to monolithic architecture, and people are wondering why after so many years they are choosing monolithic over microservices, to resolve the confusion we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the architecture monolithic in this article, well, there must be some reason why monolithic is always preferred over microservices, right?
Introduction to Monolithic Architecture
To begin, let’s see what a monolithic architecture means.
Monolithic architecture is a traditional approach in which a single autonomous unit is responsible for managing all operations, meaning the entire application is built in a unified unit only. The monolithic style of software architecture has been extremely popular over the years and businesses still prefer using it over microservices due to its simplicity. In a monolithic architecture, executables are tightly interconnected with each other, sharing the same working environment and a single code base.
This type of software architecture often does not allow for proper management of large projects and can affect performance. Let’s understand monolithic architecture with an example of a social media platform.
A social media platform involves many operations such as user registration, login authentication, sending messages, uploading posts and a whole bunch of things. In a monolithic architecture, all code bases and operational functions will be built and operated in a single application and not in multiple responsibility-driven architectures, where each layer has its own distinct working environment and you can access the platform -form whether from a mobile or a desktop computer. according to your needs.
Advantages of monolithic architecture
So how does monolithic architecture prove to be a better option? Here are the advantages of monolithic architecture:
- Ease of development and Simplicity: One of the most appreciated advantages of monolithic architecture is the simplicity it brings with ease of development. This allows developers to focus primarily on development and functionality rather than diving into managing multiple components and services. This can be useful for providing clear, consolidated workspaces and reducing the need for developers to shuffle between different departments.
- Efficient use of resources: In monolithic architecture, all application components share the same resources and execution time, which can lead to better resource utilization. Rather than scaling vertically, the application will scale horizontally by replicating the stack and therefore efficient resource management will be present.
- Simplified debugging and maintenance: Maintenance and Debugging are streamlined because all codebases appear to be in a single working environment, simplifying debugging and maintenance for small projects and teams. Bug tracking becomes easy.
- Inexpensive compared to other services: Monolithic architecture can be cost-effective for new-age startups or businesses just starting out because having a single unit of resources will reduce costs for additional infrastructure and resources.
- Ease of scaling: Scaling a monolithic architecture becomes much easier because the process is relatively simple. Thus, the simplicity of this architecture greatly facilitates scaling the application both vertically and horizontally.
Disadvantages of monolithic architecture
We have seen some advantages of monolithic architecture, it is time to look at some of the disadvantages of monolithic architecture:
- Limited scalability in large applications: As we discussed, scaling is easy and simple, but it can encounter challenges as it grows. The code base will grow and so will the application, which can cause bottlenecks because you can’t use a single code base for all the huge services in the application, it’s not feasible. Therefore, at this point, scalability of large applications becomes an issue, whether horizontally or vertically. Additionally, if your user base grows quickly, this scalability issue becomes important.
- Complex deployment and continuous integration: In terms of deployment and integration, monolithic architecture can pose challenges. Imagine you need to update a single component of your code, but to do so you have to re-deploy the entire application, which can be potentially disruptive for users.
- Rigidity of the technology stack: As the application grows, the technology stack may become less flexible and you may not be able to use a new stack for future operations if necessary. Adapting to new technologies can become tedious, as you may need to modify your entire code base if changes are necessary.
- Performance issues: In your monolithic application, a single database will be used for all operations, which slows down performance if the application is larger and multiple sections of your applications query the database.
- Reduced developer autonomy: Due to the tight coupling between different operations and sections of our application. If you make a change to just one part of the system, it may have unintended consequences on other parts of the system. This can therefore affect the autonomy of the developer.
Conclusion
To conclude, monolithic architecture has several advantages and disadvantages based on factors such as scaling, cost, resource usage, etc. You may notice that the monolithic architecture becomes a bit problematic when growing large-scale applications leading to performance issues. , complex deployment and scalability limitations. Monolithic architecture is generally preferred by start-up companies whose application infrastructure is not so complex and can easily scale in a monolithic manner.
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