Microservices with Azure

Namit Tanasseri, Rahul Rai

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781787123489
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Systems Architecture
• Index: Computer Science

Architect enterprise-grade, Microservice-based solutions using Microsoft Azure Service Fabric.About This Book• Explore architectural patterns for building modern day Microservice-based systems• Learn about Microsoft Service Fabric as a platform to host distributed Microservices• Discover multiple options for hosting Microservices on heterogeneous, cross-platform environments• Learn to configure Azure Service Fabric clusters for enterprise-grade service deploymentsWho This Book Is ForThe book is aimed at IT architects, system administrators, and DevOps engineers who have a basic knowledge of the Microsoft Azure platform and are working on, or are curious about, the concepts of Microservices and Microservice architecture.What You Will Learn• Understand the basics of Microservices and how Microsoft Azure fits into the equation• Master Azure Service Fabric architecture and services• Explore Azure Service Fabric application programming models• Comprehensive study of various architecture patterns for building enterprise-grade Microservices• Manage and deploy Microservices on Azure Service Fabric• An insight into the future of Microservices with containers and serverless computingIn DetailMicrosoft Azure is rapidly evolving and is widely used as a platform on which you can build Microservices that can be deployed on-premise and on-cloud heterogeneous environments through Microsoft Azure Service Fabric. This book will help you understand the concepts of Microservice application architecture and build highly maintainable and scalable enterprise-grade applications using the various services in Microsoft Azure Service Fabric. We will begin by understanding the intricacies of the Microservices architecture and its advantages over the monolithic architecture and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) principles. We will present various scenarios where Microservices should be used and walk you through the architectures of Microservice-based applications. Next, you will take an in-depth look at Microsoft Azure Service Fabric, which is the best–in-class platform for building Microservices. You will explore how to develop and deploy sample applications on Microsoft Azure Service Fabric to gain a thorough understanding of it.Building Microservice-based application is complicated. Therefore, we will take you through several design patterns that solve the various challenges associated with realizing the Microservices architecture in enterprise applications. Each pattern will be clearly illustrated with examples that you can keep referring to when designing applications.Finally, you will be introduced to advanced topics such as Serverless computing and DevOps using Service Fabric, to help you undertake your next venture with confidence.Style and approachThis book introduces its readers to the concept of Microservices and Microsoft Azure Service Fabric as a distributed platform to host enterprise-grade Microservices. It then addresses common architectural challenges associated with the Microservice architecture, using proven architectural patterns.

Part 1 – Laying The Foundation

The chapters in this part of the book introduce you to the concept of Microservices and Microsoft Azure.

Chapter 1, Microservices – Getting to Know the Buzzword, lays the foundation of concepts of Microservices and explores the scenarios, where Microservices are best suited for your application.

Chapter 2, Microsoft Azure Platform and Services Primer, provides a very fast-paced overview of Microsoft Azure as a platform for hosting internet-scale applications.

 

Part 2 – Microsoft Azure Service Fabric

The chapters in this part of the book introduce you to the various programming models available in Azure Service Fabric.

Chapter 3, Understanding Azure Service Fabric, explains the basic concepts and architecture of Azure Service Fabric.

Chapter 4, Hands-on with Service Fabric – Guest Executables, talks about building and deploying applications as Guest Executables on a Service Fabric cluster.

Chapter 5, Hands on with Service Fabric – Reliable Services, explains the concept of Reliable Services programming model for building Microservices hosted on Service Fabric.

Chapter 6, Reliable Actors, introduces Actor programming model on Service Fabric and the ways to build and deploy actors on a Service Fabric cluster.

Part 3 – Microservice Architecture Patterns

The chapters in this part of the book give you an introduction to the Microservice architecture patterns and discuss several practical architecture patterns that you can use while designing your applications.

Chapter 7, Microservices Architecture Patterns Motivation, provides an overview of the motivation behind driving Microservices architectural patterns. The chapter also talks about the classification of the patterns that are discussed in this book.

Chapter 8, Microservices Architectural Patterns, introduces a catalog of design patterns categorized by its application. Each design pattern explains the problem and the proven solution for that problem. The pattern concludes with considerations that should be taken while applying the pattern and the use cases where the pattern can be applied.

Part 4 – Supplementary Learning

The chapters in this part of the book will walk you through some of the essential but supplementary concepts of Service Fabric such as DevOps, security and, Nanoservices.

Chapter 9, Securing and Managing Your Microservices, will guide you on securing your Microservices deployment on a Service Fabric cluster.

Chapter 10, Diagnostics and Monitoring, covers how to set up diagnostics and monitoring in your Service Fabric application. You will also learn how to use Service Fabric Explorer to monitor the cluster.

Chapter 11, Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment, takes you through the process of deploying your Microservices application on a Service Fabric cluster using Visual Studio Team Services.

Chapter 12, Serverless Microservices, helps you understand the concept of Serverless Computing and building Microservices using Azure functions.

Microservices – Getting to Know the Buzzword

The world of information technology today is witnessing a revolution influenced by cloud computing. Agile, inexpensive, scalable infrastructure which is completely self-serviced and pay-per-use has a critical part to play in optimizing the operational efficiency and time-to-market for software applications enabling all major industries. With the changing nature of underlying hardware and operational strategies, many companies find it challenging to meet competitive business requirements of delivering applications or application features which are highly scalable, highly available, and continuously evolving by nature.

The agility of this change has also compelled solution architects and software developers to constantly rethink their approach of architecting a software solution. Often, a new architecture model is inspired by learnings from the past. Microservices-driven architecture is one such example which is inspired by Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). The idea behind Microservices-based architecture is heavily based on componentization, abstraction, and object-oriented design, which is not new to a software engineer.

In a traditional application, this factorization is achieved by using classes and interfaces defined in shared libraries accessed across multiple tiers of the application. The cloud revolution encourages developers to distribute their application logic across services to better cater to changing business demands such as faster delivery of capabilities, increased reach to customers across geographies, and improved resource utilization.

What are Microservices?

In simple words, a Microservice can be defined as an autonomous software service which is built to perform a single, specific, and granular task.

The word autonomous in the preceding definition stands for the ability of the Microservice to execute within isolated process boundaries. Every Microservice is a separate entity which can be developed, deployed, instantiated, scaled, and managed discretely.

The language, framework, or platform used for developing a Microservice should not impact its invocation. This is achieved by defining communication contracts which adhere to industry standards. Commonly, Microservices are invoked using network calls over popular internet protocols such as REST.

On cloud platforms, Microservices are usually deployed on a Platform as a Service (PaaS) or Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) stack. It is recommended to employ a management software to regulate the lifecycle of Microservices on a cloud stack. This is especially desirable in solutions which require high density deployment, automatic failover, predictive healing, and rolling updates. Microsoft Azure Service Fabric is a good example of a distributed cluster management software which can be used for this purpose. More about this is covered in later sections of this book.

Microservices are also highly decoupled by nature and follow the principle of minimum knowledge. The details about the implementation of the service and the business logic used to achieve the task are abstracted from the consuming application. This property of the service enables it to be independently updated without impacting dependent applications or services. Decoupling also empowers distributed development as separate teams can focus on delivering separate Microservices simultaneously with minimal interdependency.

It is critical for a Microservice to focus on the task it is responsible for. This property is popularly known as the Single Responsibility Principle (SRP) in software engineering. This task ideally should b...