On Organic Software Architecture (and 5G Networks)

Microservices are here, and I bet they are here to stay longer.

First and foremost, as our so-everyday-and-common-they-are-a-given computer devices become more and more powerful, it was only a matter of time they get more and more responsibilities too. And as they get more responsabilities, they will get more individualized until we get a technological fabric that grows and evolves somewhat by itself and mirrors its users.

Perhaps a more recent metaphorical trend is 5G networks. Quite rightly, they offer greater speeds and capabilities. But given the bandwidth they must sustain, they are more granular as they must be placed closer to each other to make the whole new network feasible to work.

Where the metaphor may begin to fall apart is industry and consumer interest. Of course the industry is interested in both technologies. However, as has been shown in recent surveys, consumers don’t really care about 5G; this is more of an industry push to make consumers fund this network technology to let the “public” infrastructure be capable of sustaining new ventures such as autonomous taxis and smarter factories.

This may not be the case of Microservices as users, although they might not know anything about this pattern, do appreciate their versatile offerings. So, the question is: when will this Microservice atomization stop? At least as long as the industry doesn’t attempt to spoon-feed us on why we need more of this.

It is quite impressive to see how hard, or rather weird, defining what a Microservice is becomes. All I say from this is, don’t be afraid of not knowing what you face. It is only natural not to know how to describe this architecture for we are so accustomed to order and structure. Quite impressively, this architecture’s pattern is chaos itself. That’s the best way to describe it: as a whole, chaos­­­—lack of order.

 

Fowler, M. & Lewis J. (2014, March 14). Microservices: A Definition of this New Architectural Term. Retrieved from: https://martinfowler.com/articles/microservices.html

Savitz, E. J. (2020, January 17). Americans Don’t Seem to Care That 5G Is Coming. That’s a Problem. Retrieved from: https://www.barrons.com/articles/americans-dont-seem-to-care-much-that-5g-is-coming-thats-a-problem-51578416400