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Cloud migration (1)

Expertise Strategy

The Complete Guide to Migrating Monolithic Applications to Microservices on the Cloud

By Pradeep Dhawan, Cloud migration expert, emagine

As organizations strive to deliver high-quality software and services at scale, many are turning to a microservices architecture as a way to break down monolithic applications into smaller, more manageable components. By decoupling application functionality and deploying it as independent microservices, organizations can achieve greater flexibility, scalability, and resiliency in their applications.

In this blog, I will showcase the steps involved in migrating a monolithic application to the cloud using microservices. Concurrently, we will cover the entire lifecycle of the migration process, from evaluating the existing monolithic application to planning and building the microservices architecture to deploying and managing the microservices in the cloud. By following these steps, organizations can successfully move to microservices and reap the benefits of a more agile and scalable architecture.

Before moving your monolithic application to the cloud using microservices, you need to evaluate your existing application.

 


Step 1: Evaluate your existing monolithic application

Before moving your monolithic application to the cloud using microservices, you need to evaluate your existing application. This evaluation process will help you understand the application's strengths and weaknesses and identify areas that require improvement.

You can begin by breaking down the monolithic application into smaller functional components. This will help you understand the dependencies between different parts of the application and identify areas that can be decoupled to create microservices.

You can also use performance monitoring tools to identify bottlenecks and areas that require optimization. This will help you identify which parts of the application can benefit from the scalability and performance advantages offered by microservices.

Step 2: Plan your microservices architecture

Once you have evaluated your existing application, the next step is to plan your microservices architecture. This involves breaking down the monolithic application into smaller, independent microservices that can be deployed and managed separately.

Each microservice should have a clear and well-defined purpose and should be able to communicate with other microservices using a standard protocol such as RESTful APIs. You should also plan the communication channels between different microservices to ensure that they can interact seamlessly.

It is also essential to design your microservices architecture with scalability and fault tolerance in mind. This means that you should plan for horizontal scaling, load balancing, and failover mechanisms to ensure that your application can handle increased traffic and maintain high availability.

Once you have planned your microservices architecture, the next step is to build and test your microservices.

 


Step 3: Build and test your microservices

Once you have planned your microservices architecture, the next step is to build and test your microservices. This involves breaking down the monolithic application into smaller, independent microservices and building each microservice according to the design specifications.

You should also test each microservice individually to ensure that it works as intended and integrates seamlessly with other microservices. This testing should include functional testing, performance testing, and integration testing.

Step 4: Deploy your microservices

Once you have built and tested your microservices, the next step is to deploy them to the cloud. This involves setting up the necessary infrastructure, such as virtual machines, containers, and load balancers, to host and manage your microservices.

You should also establish a continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipeline to automate the deployment process and ensure that your microservices are always up-to-date and running smoothly.

Once your microservices are deployed to the cloud, you need to monitor and manage them effectively.

 


Step 5: Monitor and manage your microservices

Once your microservices are deployed to the cloud, you need to monitor and manage them effectively. This involves using monitoring tools to track the performance and availability of each microservice and detect any issues that may arise.

You should also have a robust management plan in place to ensure that your microservices are secure, compliant, and up-to-date. This includes regularly updating your microservices with security patches and bug fixes and ensuring that your microservices comply with industry standards and regulations.

Conclusion

In conclusion, migrating a monolithic application to the cloud using microservices can be a complex process, but it can result in significant benefits in terms of scalability, reliability, and agility.

By following the steps outlined in this article, you can successfully migrate your monolithic application to the cloud using microservices and achieve these benefits.

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