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Is a Micorservice a design pattern or an architectural pattern

 
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Hi Sam,

Excuse me but I'm a little confuse about the subject of microservice. I wanted to know if a microservice is a design pattern or an architectural pattern?

Thanks for your comprehension.
 
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Hi Raymond,

What do you think of as the difference between the two? I haven't thought clearly about the distinction to the point where I can say, but it would help me if you could perhaps share what the terms mean to you?
 
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Thanks for taking the time to visit us, Sam. I don't claim to be an expert and I certainly haven't written a book but my understanding of the term "microservice" is that it refers to an architectural implementation methodology whereas a design pattern refers to a particular approach to a solution for a set of requirements. One might be presented with a programming challenge/problem and decide to implement, for example, a programming solution using the visitor pattern for it whereas one might potentially implement a set of microservices as a part of the underlying design pattern. Is that accurate or did I just muddy the waters? Or both?

respectfully,
dgg
 
Sam Newman
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Hmm...we might be in danger of talking semantics, but I'll give it a go!

Microservices are an approach that brings with it benefits and downsides. This means it isn't right in all circumstances, and only warrants use where the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. To give you an idea of how I go about making these judgement calls, I wrote up one such assessment recently.

Any architectural approach or decision should be rooted in the notion that it is there for a purpose, to solve a problem or create opportunity.

I think the distinction you are looking for may not be clear cut. For example I might implement a microservice as an actor in a larger-scoped visitor or competing consumer pattern implementation, but equally I may have such a pattern implemented inside a single microservice boundary.

Not sure if this is any clearer!
 
Don't get me started about those stupid light bulbs.
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