The traditional structure of a monolithic system has been known to present numerous difficulties and complexities when attempting to scale services and ensure interactive systems remain stable under load. The immense flexibility and scalability of Microservices architecture, in comparison, has a number of distinct benefits to make enterprise data systems robust and easy to maintain. As part of any successful deployment, the choice of a suitable database is an essential component. The strong recommendation for any enterprise system would be the use of a NoSQL database for data storage. This article provides insights into why the selection of NoSQL data stores best fits the needs of a Microservices architecture.
Why NoSQL for Microservices
NoSQL databases are particularly suited to a component-based software design like Microservices. The maximum stress caused by distributed systems can be overcome through scaling via a replica, sharing, effective processing and storage of data. NoSQL provides advantages as it can easily support multiple data models (key-value, document based and wide column) to process numerous concurrent requests, each querying and updating different types of data. It also enables horizontal scaling and provides high availability by allowing customers to make queries against an available replica of the data should any node fail.
NoSQL databases deliver improved performance compared to a relational database as they do not require users to create fixed tables and relationships before data can be stored. This allows for greater speed and ease of data access. Performance can be further enhanced by partitioning the data across separate databases with sharding, which allows the system to spread the load more conveniently.
Integrating Microservice with NoSQL
Integrating a Microservice with a NoSQL data store is highly cost effective, as it eliminates the need to use expensive hardware and additional software to manage and maintain data. Thus, by leveraging a cloud-based NoSQL database with Microservices, customers are able to dramatically reduce their infrastructure costs, realise faster data access and mitigate the risk of downtime.
In addition to these advantages, NoSQL stores also provide developers with a rich selection of integration options, such as DocumentDB and MongoDB. These services allow developers to easily create and make use of services such as data mapping, indexing and data joining, allowing for considerable flexibility for developers when working with data.
Advantages of NoSQL Services in Microservices
NoSQL databases are highly reliable and atomic, allowing for synchronous transactions in cases involving multiple services. By leveraging the power of NoSQL databases for data storage, enterprises can quickly respond to changing customer requirements, develop and deploy microservices with an assurance of continuity. This is particularly crucial in a fast-paced microservices-based system, where customer expectations are high and the cost of downtime can be immense.
NoSQL databases are also extremely secure and offer customers a number of security features, such as encryption of databases at rest, audit logging and control of read and write operations. This can be especially beneficial within microservice environments, enabling security departments to have granular control over data access by different applications and services.
Data Modeling
Data modeling is critical when developing a microservice architecture. A microservice relies on keeping data organized and encapsulated, which is best achieved by using a NoSQL data store. NoSQL data stores allow a decentralized data structure, enabling flexibility during data management. This way, changes in the structure of data are seamlessly integrated in the microservice architecture, allowing for better agility and scalability.
NoSQL databases also utilize ‘appropriateness of shape’. This means that the size and shape of the data being stored matches that of the objects within the system. Data no longer needs to be converted – such as from JSON to XML – since they can be stored in the same format as they are used, offering better performance and faster data access.
Sharing Modular Components
Using a NoSQL data store is especially beneficial in a microservices-based architecture due to its ability to support modular services and components. This in turn allows teams to quickly create components and services that are independent and can be shared across multiple projects and applications. This flexibility offers teams more control over data access and management.
The use of NoSQL databases also eliminates the need for ‘orchestrators’. This is an invaluable benefit as it avoids the complexity of creating a ‘master’ database synchronising various microservices, a process that is both labour intensive and costly. The intrinsic capability of NoSQL to replicate data compensates for the siloed structure of a microservice system, allowing for greater agility and scalability.
Uniformity
NoSQL data stores provide uniformity of data access for a wide range of applications, allowing for teams and applications to access data without having to depend on an underlying table. This way, development teams have an easier time when it comes to developing and scaling applications across different platforms, as each new project is developed independently of the other.
Further, the enhanced scalability of NoSQL data stores means that applications can be developed independently to handle all types of data, while still having the ability to utilize them all within an overall microservice application architecture.
Data Interaction Across Platforms
Because of its distributed nature, a NoSQL database gives customers the ability to access and manage data from various platforms simultaneously; creating and editing data becomes as easy as working with a desktop application. This has the advantage of allowing customers to inject data into a microservice-based application from different sources and to create microservices with ease.
NoSQL databases are also well adapted to work with multiple types of devices, and they can detect, interpret and store data generated by mobile devices and other devices. The replication capabilities of NoSQL databases also make data safe, easily accessible and quickly retrievable.
The Bottom Line
NoSQL stores are a strong choice for any microservices-based system. Not only do they provide customers with enhanced security and performance, but their scalability and flexibility also allow for greater agility, reliability and cost savings. This makes NoSQL databases highly suitable for a microservices-based architecture, enabling customers to manage their data more efficiently and to easily handle the scalability needs of their application.
