On microservices, bounded contexts, and everything in between

Often microservices and bounded contexts are considered to be the same thing. They are not. Vladik Khononov identifies the difference between microservices and bounded contexts, provides heuristics when each pattern should be used, and shares his experience optimizing microservices-quotebased architectures at Naxex.

“Ninety-five percent of the words are spent extolling the benefits of ‘modularity’ and that little, if anything, is said about how to achieve it”—Glenford J. Myers, 1978. The above quote is 40 years old. Today, four decades later, nothing has changed except terminology. Time to fix this. Vladik Khononov explains how to decompose a system into loosely coupled components: how to draw boundaries between services, how to decide whether some logic belongs to one service or another, and how domain-driven design can help us make those decisions. Finally, he takes a stab at answering the age-old question of what part of a microservice should be “micro” and how it can be measured. You’ll hear about neither Docker nor Kubernetes. Actually, nothing related to infrastructure. Instead, you’ll dive into the difference between microservices and bounded contexts, discover when each pattern should be used, and get takeaways from Vladik’s experience optimizing microservices-quotebased architectures at Naxex.