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Collabrate On Libraries

Context​

Microservices are being adopted. There are cross-cutting concerns that need to be tackled in multiple or every microservice. Standards are introduced to govern the technological diversity.

Problem​

  • Inefficiency as there is no code sharing between microservice towards cross-cutting concerns
  • The technical diversity makes the system unmaintainable
    • Introduced standards are not implemented

Solution​

Introduce an inner-source or open-source process to foster collaboration between teams on cross-cutting issues. Libraries can be utilized to share code. However, they should only compose of reusable general-purpose code and not domain-specific aspects like shared models.

By basing the library on the standardized technology stack, it incentivizes the adherence to the standard. A reimplementation of the same logic on another technology stack poses a hurdle for introducing technology by consuming additional resources. A deviation of the standard will only be chosen if the effort is justifiable and worth it.

Maturity​

Proposed, to be evaluated.

Sources of Evidence​

L8:

  • Some (Spotify) developed utility libs like for logging in a central repository
  • Others (Uber) restrict freedom of technology choice

L14:

  • Code should not be shared to avoid dependencies
  • Exceptions:
    • frontend assets
    • loosely coupled, highly coherent general-purpose code that satisfies quality to be open sourced
      • => other teams are free to use these libraries or use their own solutions

L44:

  • in IoT context
  • Component model for a microservice with various parts
    • Secrity (orthogonal)
    • SDK
    • Event Hub
    • Event Processor
    • Task Scheduler
    • Domain Logic
    • Public API
    • ...
  • "Microservice core components" can be inherited from
    • cross-service API calls for service data context exchange
    • coordination
    • remote service management

Interview E:

  • Achieve overarching look-and-feel
  • Designed systems
    • A team buids a style library
    • If decoupling => versioning
    • Inner-sourcing
  • Style-guide / widget library