Industry practices and challenges for the evolvability assurance of microservices

作者：Justus Bogner, Jonas Fritzsch, Stefan Wagner, Alfréd Zimmermann · 发表于：Empirical Software Engineering · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.1007/s10664-021-09999-9 · 被引用次数：56 · 研究领域：Software System Performance and Reliability、Software Engineering Research、Software Engineering Techniques and Practices

Abstract Context Microservices as a lightweight and decentralized architectural style with fine-grained services promise several beneficial characteristics for sustainable long-term software evolution. Success stories from early adopters like Netflix, Amazon, or Spotify have demonstrated that it is possible to achieve a high degree of flexibility and evolvability with these systems. However, the described advantageous characteristics offer no concrete guidance and little is known about evolvability assurance processes for microservices in industry as well as challenges in this area. Insights into the current state of practice are a very important prerequisite for relevant research in this field. Objective We therefore wanted to explore how practitioners structure the evolvability assurance processes for microservices, what tools, metrics, and patterns they use, and what challenges they perceive for the evolvability of their systems. Method We first conducted 17 semi-structured interviews and discussed 14 different microservice-based systems and their assurance processes with software professionals from 10 companies. Afterwards, we performed a systematic grey literature review (GLR) and used the created interview coding system to analyze 295 practitioner online resources. Results The combined analysis revealed the importance of finding a sensible balance between decentralization and standardization. Guidelines like architectural principles were seen as valuable to ensure a bas...