Microservices Architecture Enables DevOps Migration to a Cloud-Native Architecture

When DevOps started gaining momentum in the software industry, one of the first service-based architectural styles to be introduced, be applied in practice, and become popular was microservices. Migrating monolithic architectures to cloud-native architectures such as microservices reaps many benefits, such as adaptability to technological changes and independent resource management for different system components. This article reports on experiences and lessons learned during incremental migration and architectural refactoring of a commercial MBaaS (mobile back end as a service) to microservices. It explains how adopting DevOps facilitated a smooth migration. Furthermore, the researchers transformed their experiences in different projects into reusable migration practices, resulting in microservices migration patterns. This article is part of a theme issue on DevOps. The Web extra at https://youtu.be/MF3-dKTCQ88 is an audio recording of Brian Brannon speaking with author Pooyan Jamshidi and James Lewis, principal engineer at ThoughtWorks, about DevOps and microservices architecture. © 2016 IEEE.