Reference no: EM132349008

Microservices Architecture

Learning Outcomes

a) Synthesise research to determine understanding of micro-services and how they contribute to new business processes
b) Collaboratively recommend strategies for transitioning to contemporary computer architectures that maintain efficiencies and address changing business requirements
c) Negotiate change management and highlight benefits to address complex business needs.
d) Reflect on moral and ethical issues in transitioning to new technologies.

Context:

Now that you have reviewed the history of computing and demonstrated an understanding of the concept of software architecture and the various types of software architecture in Assessment 1, you are now tasked to examine a case and advise a company in the transition to microservice architecture.

Instructions:

Having read your report on the history of computing and a survey of software architecture, the Chief Technology Officer of Whiteboard (the ‘Company') decided to overhaul its technology strategy and the management of its IT delivery teams to ensure they provide reliable student and learning management systems to over 600 universities and institutions across the world. Whiteboard is a leading student and learning management system provider, supporting over 10 million students worldwide.

Flexibility and agility are critical to the Company so that they can incorporate new code and new technologies that facilitate teaching and learning as frequently as they can and measure the effort of that. Continuous and frequent delivery lies at the core of the Company's IT strategy and offers a great competitive edge to the Company over its competitors.

The System they provide comprehensively manage the entire lifecycle of a student, from student recruitment, student enrolment, tuition fee payment, learning content management, to student academic record management, graduation and the issuance of qualification and certificate.

The Company is considering a restructure. "We are nowhere close to a continuous and frequent delivery module, as it requires a shift to a more microservice-based approach to the monolithic system", said the Chief Technology Officer. "What we are looking to do is to break the System up architecturally into microservices so that we can release code that does not have any dependencies across the other components of the System."

The Company is satisfied with the credentials you established in the previous report and have engaged you to write a report to further advise them on the transition to microservice architecture. Your report should address the following tasks:

• A definition and introduction to microservice architecture;
• Examples of successful implementation of microservice architecture for at least three companies in different industries. You should include the benefit microservice architecture brought to them. There is no architecture free lunch, therefore you should also discuss the challenges they faced in the implementation of microservice architecture;
• Discuss the principles of service modelling and technologies available for integration, e.g. SOAP, XML-RPC, REST.
• Discuss the challenges in splitting the backend monolithic system that represent substantial amount of the behaviour of the Company's system.
• Discuss any ethical, legal and security issues in the transitioning to microservice architecture. Your report should include the following

1. Title page: Subject code and name, assessment number, report title, assessment due date, word count (actual), student names, student IDs, Torrens email address, campus learning facilitator, and Subject coordinator.

2. Executive summary: should include the purpose of the report, the problem including key issues considered and how they were investigated, your findings and recommendations. This part should be approximately three quarters of an A4 page but must not be longer than one (1) A4 page.

3. Table of Contents (ToC): should list the report topics using decimal notation. Need to include the main headings and subheadings with corresponding page numbers, using a format that makes the hierarchy of topics clear. Because you are including a ToC the report pages should be numbered in the footer as follows: title page has no page number; and main text to have Arabic numerals commencing at 1. Create the ToC using MS Word's ToC auto-generator rather than manually typing out the ToC.

4. Introduction: provide a brief description of the company as given in the case scenario including any assumptions, a concise overview of the problem you have been asked to research, the main aims/purpose of the report, the objectives to be achieved by writing the report (include the tasks outlined in the case study) and how you investigated the problem. Provide an outline of the sections of the report.

5. Body of the report (use appropriate headings in the body of the report.): Ensure that you address the tasks listed in the case study scenario. Do NOT use generic words such as ‘Body, Body of the Report, Tasks' as section headings. Create meaningful headings and subheadings that reflect the topic and content of your report.

6. Conclusion: restate the purpose of the report and key issues investigated and the related findings based on your research and analysis. Explain the significance of your findings for addressing the problem stated in the case scenario and any limitations. State how your report has achieved its objectives and any future work to be considered.

7. Recommendation: make specific and actionable recommendations to Whiteboard to help their transitioning into microservices architecture.

8. Appendices if necessary.

*Note: want at least 16 references and the referencing style should be APA 6th edition.