Your technology strategy is the key to executing successful digital transformation. But if you talk to engineers and strategists, there are opposing views on the best way to leverage technology. While engineers might push for a pure microservices architecture, strategists may take a step back and consider the long-term implications of that decision on the enterprise. Is there a middle ground? Our own VP of Engineering, Samer Fallouh, and Head of Technology Strategy, Russell Villemez, discussed this topic to see if there was some middle ground to drive innovation more effectively. Full write-up: https://by.dialexa.com/platforms-and-microservices-is-there-a-middle-ground-for-engineers-and-tech-strategists

1. Executive Buy-In: Selling Your
Digital Transformation Strategy
by Doug Platts
https://by.dialexa.com/platforms-and-microservices-is-there-a-middle-ground-for-
engineers-and-tech-strategists

2. Dialexa
We are on a mission to make every
company a great technology company.
We work with organizations to define and
execute digital transformation strategies to
improve business operations and customer
experiences. Our services include:
• Multi-Year Technology Roadmap
• Platform Engineering
• User Experience Design
• Custom Software Development
• Hardware Prototyping /IoT

3. Your technology
strategy is the key
to executing
successful digital
transformation. But
if you talk to
engineers and
strategists, there
are opposing views
on the best way to
leverage
technology.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

4. While engineers might push
for a pure microservices
architecture, strategists may
take a step back and
consider the long-term
implications of that decision
on the enterprise. Is there a
middle ground?
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

5. Our own VP of Engineering,
Samer Fallouh, and Head of
Technology Strategy, Russell
Villemez, discussed this
topic to see if there was
some middle ground to drive
innovation more effectively.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

6. To read more you can find the full article at
https://by.dialexa.com/platforms-and-
microservices-is-there-a-middle-ground-for-
engineers-and-tech-strategists

7. How Do You Define
Platforms and
Microservices?
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

8. Samer: Platforms are systems that can
support multiple applications. They provide
data, business logic, and communication
protocols to end users, not just in a front-
end / backend form, but also to multiple
mobile apps, third party systems, other
developers and platforms, etc.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

9. Microservices is a type of
architecture used in building
platforms by dividing it to the
smallest units possible. These
units are independent and
each should do one thing and
one thing only, but do it very
well. This type of platforms
can also support multiple
applications.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

10. Teams sometimes choose this architecture to
address obvious future scalability needs, and to
implement agile methodologies. Instead of one
giant monolith, you have more manageable
components that can support agile demands.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

11. Now that’s from the
engineering perspective,
Microservices is more than
just a type of a software
architecture, it’s an agile
culture as well. You’ll need
to find harmony between
ops and engineering to be
successful in implementing
Microservices.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

12. Russell: Microservices have been pitched as highly
modularized and decoupled—something a team can form
around and have independently deployable services without
worrying about dependencies with other services, data, or
tech infrastructure. They are considered the solution to the
problems associated with monolithic apps.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

13. But this is not our industry’s first run at solving these problems.
In the 60’s and 70’s, a monolithic business application was
written in assembler or COBOL and our attempts to
modularized these things came in the form of macros and
procedure calls. But binaries were still large and monolithic.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

14. Later came client/server
computing, and with it RPCs
which worked over the
network. Smaller binaries
became distributed - a huge
shift away from the previous
notion of “monolithic”.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

15. Then web applications and SOA came along, which led to
externalized methods for registering and finding services
with published API’s. At the time, this was the epitome of
“decoupled”. And now, microservices advocates refer to
applications built for the SOA generation as “monolithic”. I
guess it all depends on your perspective!
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

16. But here’s the thing that applications from every generation
must deal with: how to best interoperate with the world
around them. And that world is increasingly not homogenous.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

17. So whether you are
maintaining legacy code,
or writing microservices
code, you will eventually
have to integrate with a
wide variety of things that
do not fit the latest
container technology.
And that’s where
platforms come in.
Platforms simplify the
task of integrating a wide
variety of applications
and data across a diverse
technology ecosystem.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

18. Does your software platform strategy support your
business demands?
Download or free eBook:
Platform Thinking: Creating Real-World, Scalable Platforms

19. Is This an “Old Companies User
Monoliths” vs. “New Companies
Use Microservices” Debate?
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

20. Samer: Microservices is
a modern software
architecture and is highly
used in building
platforms nowadays. It’s
not old vs new
conversation, I think it’s
more like what different
types of platforms are
there and how do you
decide on which
architecture your
platform should use?
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

21. Russell: I agree. Old vs. new is too
simplistic. The question should be “how
big is the need for integration across
different technologies?” Granted,
established organizations can have a lot
of complexity built up over time, while
newer organizations have less legacy
and are therefore more homogeneous.
But old and new alike can benefit from
microservices, and both old and new can
benefit from a platform approach.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

22. At the scale of the enterprise, where
the need for integration across a wide
variety of technologies is the highest,
enterprise integration platforms are
absolutely critical for connecting
systems of all types, including point
solutions developed using microservices.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

23. In fact, microservices cannot participate at the enterprise
level without the implementation of an architectural
pattern for enterprise integration.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

24. A platform is the very
thing that allows
packaged software,
SaaS applications,
legacy apps, and
everything else to talk
to each other in a
predictable manner. A
microservices app is
just another endpoint
in that context.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

25. Samer: The more common
type of platforms you hear
about today is the
Application Platform, which
is a software platform built
to empower a growing
business. These Application
Platforms serve a specific
business, i.e. a business
that connects a type of
providers to their
consumers, or another that
provides a set of services
to customers through
applications (mobile & web)
and data to third parties.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

26. Microservices approach is very common in Application
Platforms. It made sense for these platforms because with
processes like Continuous Integration and Continuous
Delivery concepts are empowered in Microservices.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

27. CI/CD processes bring
so much value to the
product you’re building;
from better quality, to
faster feedback loops,
to confidence when
releasing to production,
and even more
integrated team where
everyone has visibility,
respect, and empathy
to what other
departments are
responsible for building
and delivering!
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

28. Companies like Netflix and Amazon
adapted Microservices to solve the
problems they were facing in their
monolithic systems, they were able to
experiment with new technologies and
have an innovative mindset in their
culture.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

29. How Do You Decide When
to Use Microservices?
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

30. Russell: All things being
equal, there is no reason not
to adopt microservices
technologies, especially when
combined with agile
development practices. The
two go hand in glove so well.
But things are not always
equal. Some problem
domains rarely change.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

31. How often does the Finance
function want to change how
annual reports are produced for
shareholders? (Hint: it’s
an annual report). And the
dependencies associated with
that change would be hard to
isolate to just financial analytics
apps, much less a single
microservice. So that would be
something requiring plenty of
planning, followed by a rare
software change.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

32. On the other hand, how often does Marketing want to
change the messaging on a product web site? In
some cases, it’s more than once during the time it’s
taking you to read this article. The point is that we
should be looking at the scale and pace of change in
the problem domain, and choosing our architectural
patterns accordingly.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

33. We should be asking “what is
the likely shelf life of this
application?”, “How often will
it change?”, “How uncertain
are we of the business
requirements?” and “How
mature is the problem
domain?”.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

34. Samer: That’s a great way to put it. We
spend so much time focusing on becoming
more agile and innovative, but if you don’t
take a step back to look at the big picture and
the long term goals for your business.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

35. One reason I can think of to use Microservices is
when you know your system is going to handle
different types of traffic for different types of
services, for example you have a constant
stream of data that you need to process while
your billing service is just on demand.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

36. This way you enable having
different scaling metrics for
different microservices. You’ll
have teams focused on
different pieces of your
platform and you’ll trust them
to implement it with little
direction and guidelines. You
do need a maestro team to
orchestrate this effort.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

37. Russell: It sounds as though the middle ground is very
context-sensitive. In some cases, we should not worry
about enterprise platforms, where speed and failure
and discovery are paramount.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

38. In other cases, it
would be a very poor
business decision to
charge ahead with
building a purist
microservices
architecture without
an predetermined
platform strategy.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

39. Sometimes that platform might be limited to a specific
application or problem domain, and other times that
platform might need to be enterprise-wide. The most
important thing to get right is knowing where along that
continuum we should land, given the intended outcome.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

40. Samer: Absolutely. Going with
Microservices helps you move faster. You
don’t have to understand every detail in the
business logic before you start
development, you can identify small chunks
that need to be built and assign them to
different teams to start making progress
right away. But it can easily become a trap
where you focused on everything except
the big picture. This way, you’d end up
stuck in an architecture that keeps you
from moving the business forward.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

41. Adopting a
Platform
Engineering
Mentality in Your
Organization
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

42. The value of microservices
can’t be denied—especially
as digital transformation
weighs heavier on
organizations of all sizes.
However, swinging all the
way in favor of
microservices is just as
dangerous if you lose sight
of the larger technology
architecture.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

43. In other cases, it would be a very poor business decision to charge
ahead with building a purist microservices architecture without an
predetermined platform strategy. Sometimes that platform might
be limited to a specific application or problem domain, and other
times that platform might need to be enterprise-wide. The most
important thing to get right is knowing where along that continuum
we should land, given the intended outcome.
Get the full write up of
this slideshare HERE

44. PROPERTY OF DIALEXA LLC ©2017 - CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY
Thank You
Doug Platts
VP of Marketing
marketing@dialexa.com
If you are looking to undertake a
digital transformation initiative,
contact Dialexa today and see how
we can help make your company a
great technology company.
Get the full write up of this slideshare at https://
by.dialexa.com/platforms-and-microservices-is-there-a-
middle-ground-for-engineers-and-tech-strategists