Microservices have become the hottest topic in software architecture over the past year, and much can be said about their benefits. However, it’s important to understand that as soon as we start decomposing the monolith, we enter the realm of distributed systems. Anyone who is familiar with The Eight Fallacies of Distributed Computing knows that such systems are fraught with danger, and making any of the eight assumptions will eventually lead to disastrous consequences.
If I were to sum up these fallacies in one sentence it would be the following: Any expression of consistency or reliability in a distributed system is a lie. We have to assume that the behavior and the locations of the components of our system will constantly change. Two consequences of this: Components will sometimes provide poor quality of service or outright disappear, and we can bucket these under the general term of faults. Faults, if not handled properly, can cause failures, meaning the system no longer provides the service it was designed to provide.
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