Operation: Micro or Macro Architecture?

Some decisions in the area of micro and macro architecture mostly influence the operation of the applications. Let’s take a look at a few.

Configuration #

We must define the interface with which a microservice obtains its configuration parameters. For example, a microservice can get these settings via an environment variable or read them from a configuration file. These parameters include both:

• Technical parameters such as thread pool sizes
• Parameters for the domain logic

The decision of how to store and generate the configuration data is independent of these parameters. The data can be stored in a database, for example. Either configuration files or environment variables can be generated from the data in the database.

Note that the information on which computer and under which port a microservice can be reached, does not belong to the configuration, but to the service discovery.

Configuring passwords or certificates is also a challenge that can be solved with other tools. To do this, Vault is a good choice because this information must be stored in a particularly secure way and must be visible to as few employees as possible in order to prevent unauthorized access to production data.