In the microservices panel at QCon London 2018, track host Sam Newman together with Susanne Kaiser, Guy Podjarny, Idit Levine and Mark Burgess, discussed how the service technology as we see it today will change, and how we will build systems in the future. They believed microservices will continue to exist but will evolve into becoming a base for other techniques like serverless architectures.
In the microservices panel at QCon London 2018, discussing how service technology as we see it today will change, and how we will build systems in the future, the microservices track host Sam Newman asked if microservices will fade away and become an implementation detail. The panel — consisting of Susanne Kaiser, Guy Podjarny, Idit Levine and Mark Burgess — believed that microservices will continue to exist, but will evolve into becoming a base for other techniques like serverless architectures when building distributed systems.
Newman, author of Building Microservices, then asked if the serverless technology will change how we build system in the future — is it the next evolutional step?
When asked if the characteristics of a microservice have changed during the seven years since the term was coined, the panel agreed that domain-driven design (DDD) is still an important concept. Kaiser noted that microservices has forced them even more towards DDD, for instance when finding candidates for a microservice. She also noted that all the software architecture principles are still applicable with DDD having a huge impact.
Regarding lock-in to a vendor when starting a new company, the panel agreed that they would try to avoid that. Kaiser would definitely go for a cloud-native approach — allowing you to focus on your core business. Burgess noted that the standardization of the industry is still immature but thinks this will change in the coming years.
If starting a next venture or product, Kaiser would probably start with microservices if the organization has the capability, otherwise she would start with a monolith. Levine warned about creating technical debt and would start with microservices, which she feels very comfortably with. Podjarny’s experience is that microservices is more of a pain from the beginning, but you are also setup for the future.
Most presentations at the conference were recorded and will be available on InfoQ over the coming months. The next QCon conference, QCon.ai, will focus on AI and machine learning and is scheduled for April 9 – 11,2018, in San Francisco. QCon London 2019 is scheduled for March 4 – 8,2019.
