Azure Microservices – first glance
As my colleague Sam promised in his ‘initial thoughts’ blog post about Azure Microservices, we would come back to you with as much details about Azure Microservices as we can right now.
The Azure Microservice technology will be leveraged as the core to build the new integration platform within the Microsoft stack. As this will be the technology underneath the integration platform, it deserves a closer look.
Let’s have a look at the platform of Azure Microservices. The platform of Azure Microservices contains the following parts:
- Hosting
- Development
- Gateway
- Workflow engine
- Gallery
Hosting
Azure Microservices will be hosted in Azure App Containers, which are run as Azure Websites. The choice for Azure Websites as a hosting environment is not a coincidence, it is an enterprise grade cloud that supports global scale and already runs millions of websites and Web API’s.
Each Microservice exists as an independently deployable unit of logic/functionality that is exposed via a RESTful API.
Development
The Azure Microservices technology is open to a wide range of developers. Microservices can be written in one of the following languages: .Net, Java, PHP, Python, Node. This makes it possible for developers to use the language they are most productive in.
Gateway
The gateway will handle calls between Microservices. Microservices will never call each other directly.
Having the gateway in between Microservices calls allows to implement security, monitoring and governance in a centralized manner.
Workflow engine
The workflow engine will orchestrate API execution or the Microservices in that workflow. This workflow definition will be JSON based!
Each of these Microservices in a workflow will be monitored closely. The workflow engine will allow to monitor parameters like installed applications, number of calls to components, network traffic, detailed performance data, up-time and crashes.
Gallery
The gallery will contain Microservices that you can use that are developed by you, Microsoft or third party organizations. Microservices you create can be kept either private to your organization or made public for Azure users. The gallery will allow reusing existing functionality and be more productive when delivering complete workflows.
A Microservice author who publishes his Microservice to the gallery will also get feedback about the performance of his Microservices. Crash logs will be communicated to the Microservice author.
Integration platform on Microservices
To make integration possible on this technology, the integration concepts we use today will be implemented on the Microservices platform. Transform, trading partner management, connectors, rule engine, validation, batching (…) will all be made available as a Microservice that can be plugged into your workflows.
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