The document discusses various "cloud anti-patterns" or common mistakes made when developing cloud-native applications and microservices. Some of the anti-patterns covered include ignoring cloud-native platforms, focusing too much on risk mitigation over innovation, creating monolithic microservices, prematurely decomposing services, failing to implement proper APIs, service discovery, and fault tolerance, trying to rewrite entire monolithic applications at once instead of gradually, failing to implement proper logging and tracing across services, and having siloed search capabilities. The presentation emphasizes the importance of using cloud-native platforms, gradual refactoring, clear APIs, service discovery, fault tolerance patterns, logging, tracing, test automation, and unified search.

1. CLOUD ANTI-
PATTERNS
DevOpsDays Ohio
November 2015

2. whoami Mallika Iyer
Cloud Foundry Specialist @ Pivotal
Twitter @cloudfoundryart
LinkedIn in/imallika
@cloudfoundryart

3. Certified TRX trainer | Fitness junkie | German Shepherd Fanatic
@cloudfoundryart

4. @cloudfoundryart

5. Agenda
• Cloud Anti-Patterns
• #1 Ignoring the Sweet Spot
• #2 Risk Mitigation v/s Innovation
• #3 The Monolithic Microservice
• #4 The Microservice Smell
• #5 The 3 musketeers of cloud-native apps
• #6 Boil tea, not the ocean
• #7 The micro-service push & shove
• #8 Build Pipelines are your BFFs
• #9 Siloed Search
• Summary
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6. Before we begin…
• Let’s define things!
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7. Microservices
Microservices is a software
architecture design pattern, in
which complex applications are
composed of small,
independent processes
communicating with each other
using language-agnostic APIs.
These services are small,
autonomous, highly
decoupled, work together and
focus on doing a small task.
@cloudfoundryart

8. Containers
A container is an isolated
and lightweight environment
that can run a service or
application without reliance
on a separate operating
system
eg: Docker,
Warden,
Garden…
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9. Continuous Integration
The practice of merging all
developer working copies to a
shared mainline several
times a day
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10. Continuous Delivery
An approach where teams
produce valuable software in
short cycles and release the
software reliably,
predictably and at times,
automatically
eg:
Concourse,
Jenkins,
Bamboo…
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11. Cloud Anti-Patterns

12. #1 Finding the sweet spot
Sweet spot
cnp
CNP= Cloud Native Platform as a Service like Cloud Foundry
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13. #1 Ignoring the sweet spot
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14. #1 Ignoring the sweet spot
If I close my
eyes it doesn’t
exist…
cnp
CNP= Cloud Native Platform as a Service like Cloud Foundry
@cloudfoundryart

15. #2 Risk Mitigation v/s Innovation
• Problem
• Need to innovate
• Want to release cool features to production NOW
• Ops simply cannot support this because of uptime, HA, DR
and other concerns
• Result
• Everyone is unhappy
• Business is angry
• Everyone blames IT-Ops
• It’s not really fair...
@cloudfoundryart

16. Hai ya! New
cool features
tomorrow!!
No more
github for
you…
Code Ninjas/Developers
Special Ops/Operations
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17. #2 Risk Mitigation v/s Innovation
• Solution
• You don’t have to choose!
• Select the right platform
• Something like Cloud Foundry…
• Self-healing
• Application distribution across Availability Zones
• Application resurrection
• Self-monitoring and resurrection
• VM recreation
• Inherently HA
• Visibility into all development activity
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18. #3 The Monolithic Microservice
• Temptation:
• Grouping similar microservices in the same container
• Problem:
• Unable to scale
• Unable to deploy changes
• The monolithic creep
• Solution:
• ONE Micro Service Per container
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19. #4 The Microservice Smell
Temptation:
Premature decomposition of microservices
• Problem:
• Company ‘Amazing-Stuff!!!’
has a product called
‘Awesome’
• They plan to create a new
offering called ‘Super-
Awesome’
• Similarities between the 2
products cause them to split
microservices and consume
them across both products
• ‘Super-Awesome’ really
KICKS off…takes a life of its
own
• Causing the developers to
rewrite the microservices for
the new product 
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20. This micro service smells
of too many beers and
sweat…
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21. #4 The Microservice Smell
• Lesson Learned:
• DON’T BE IN A HURRY to GO MICRO – Let it be
gradual!
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22. #5 Ignoring the 3 Musketeers
APIs
Service
Registry
& Discovery
Fault
Tolerance
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23. #5 The 3 Musketeers : APIs
Problem
• 100+ microservices
need to talk to each
other
• Many are changing
simultaneously
• And they are in about
5 different languages
Solution
• Use language-
independent APIs and
API interfaces like
swagger.io
• Honor the contract
between microservices
• Interactively document
the API and integrate it
with your project tracker
@cloudfoundryart

24. #5 The 3 Musketeers : Service
Discovery & Registry
Problem
• 100+ microservices are
now talking to each
other…
• Every time a new
microservice is added, all
the others must manually
be informed of its presence
Solution
• Use a service discovery
and registry tool like
Eureka (part of Spring
Cloud Services)
• Automate Service
Discovery and
Registration
• No errors at scale
@cloudfoundryart

25. #5 The 3 Musketeers : Fault
Tolerance
Problem
• A couple of internal
services that feed your
application fail for some
reason
• The failure has now
propagated to the API
• Your customers now
experience a disruption in
service causing $$$$$$
loss in revenue
Solution
• Use a circuit breaker like
Hystrix (part of Spring
Cloud Services)
• Isolate the point of origin of
the failure
• Contain the error and
prevent cascading failure
• Graceful degradation of
service while we work
furiously behind the scenes
to fix it
@cloudfoundryart

26. #6 Boil Tea, Not the Ocean
• Problem:
• The temptation to lift and shift a monolith
• Trying to rewrite the entire application
• Too much, too fast, too soon
• Challenges:
• Unrealistic
• Might not even be possible due to IaaS restrictions
• Moving a problem from a place you (kind of) understand to a
place you absolutely don’t
• Result:
• The Cloud Native Initiative lives on PowerPoint for
eternity
@cloudfoundryart

27. #6 Boil Tea, Not the Ocean
• Solution:
• Identify a function that can be rebuilt
• Something that would benefit from innovation
• Something that is hard to modify
• Something new
• With minimum impact on the rest of the monolith
• Clearly outline the technical debt associated with that
function
• Rewrite following best practices for microservices
• Start really…really small
• Or really…really new
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28. #7 The microservice push & shove
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29. #7 The microservice push &
shove
• Problem:
• In a distributed application architecture, how do you figure
out where to look?
• Solution:
• It doesn’t have to be that way…
• Logging is your friend…
• Pivotal Ops Metrics
• New Relic, App Dynamics, Sumo Logic, ELK,
Splunk…and so many more
• Dynamic Tracing is your friend…
• Explore Zipkin
• Application Performance Monitoring tools…
• New Relic, Drip Stat…
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30. #8 Build Pipelines are your BFFs
KEEP CALM
AND
HUG
YOUR
BUILD PIPELINES
@cloudfoundryart

31. #9 Siloed Search
• Problem:
• Users cannot perform unified search
across data silos
• Search data is stale
@cloudfoundryart

32. #9 Cloud-Native Federated
Search
Solution:
• Create an Enterprise-Wide Data Bus with RabbitMQ
or Kafka
• Multiple microservices can asynchronously publish
interesting data points
• Search Event Listeners will listen to these events
and update the search indices in real-time
• Basically going from a data push model to Real-
time Data Pull Model
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33. Summary
• Don’t ignore the sweet spot – A Cloud Native Platform as a
Service like Cloud Foundry is your best friend
• You don’t have to choose between Risk Mitigation and
Innovation – A Cloud Native Platform is your ally
• The Monolithic Micro service – don’t be THAT guy
• Be wary of the micro service smells – Know When to
Repeat Yourself
• The 3 Musketeers are your best friends: APIs(swagger.io),
Service Registry & Discovery (Eureka – Spring Cloud
Services), Fault Tolerance (Hystrix-Spring Cloud Services)
@cloudfoundryart

34. Summary
• Boil tea, not the ocean – Start small, start new
• Microservices need not be murder mysteries –
Logging and Tracing are your friends
• Automation is your friend – Keep calm and hug your
build pipelines across environments
• Siloed Search will ruin your customer experience –
Search should NEVER been an afterthought
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35. Thank you!
Mallika Iyer @ Pivotal
Twitter @cloudfoundryart
LinkedIn in/imallika