Plan for change in an unpredictable future

Even more than innovation, agility has become a key characteristic of success – and it requires a new approach. Enter microservices.

Ann Marie Bond Ann Marie Bond

Here’s a quiz: What do these five things have in common?

A puppy, an RV, a bicycle, a kayak and lysol spray.

The answer is that they’re all things you can’t get anymore without a large bank balance or an inside connection.

Six months ago, you would never have been able to predict the scarcity of these seemingly disconnected items. But in overwhelming numbers, consumers are looking for a companion during isolation, a safer way to vacation, outdoor recreation to replace gym visits, and the most effective cleaning supplies. Unfortunately, the businesses selling these things couldn’t anticipate the demand, so now they are limited as to how much they can benefit from the spike.

The unpredictability of the market in times like this highlights the value of risk management, which assesses potential threats to a business. But unpredictability can also keep businesses from being able to capitalize on unexpected opportunities. And when changes happen, for better or worse, time is critical. That’s why even more than innovation, agility has become a key characteristic of successful organizations. This requires a new approach in the technology that enables it.

Microservices approach

The approach that is gaining traction is microservices-based architecture. ResearchAndMarkets projects the global cloud microservices market will grow at a rate of 22.5%, with the US market projected to maintain a growth rate of 27.4%. The desire for microservices emerged as IT leaders trying to build new products or react to market demands encountered the limitations of their existing packaged applications.

These monolithic systems were designed to last by centralizing and tightly integrating all components. But that centralization and tight interconnection means that any changes can affect other areas of the application. It requires close coordination of all developers working on the system. And it means long and involved testing cycles for each update. The resulting backlog is how IT gets blamed for holding back new business initiatives.

In contrast, a microservices application is typically composed of a large number of services, each of which is running separately. They can be written in any programming language, run anywhere, and use any message exchange pattern. For IT organizations, this allows developers to create services in the fastest, most convenient tools. For an application, it enables individual elements of the application to be added or modified independently, which greatly reduces time to market. And that gives rise to a nimbler business.

Build for change

Instead of building solutions to last, organizations need to build solutions to anticipate change. webMethods AppMesh enables companies to control both APIs and microservices from a single place, while providing deep visibility into what users are doing in microservices-based applications. You can quickly build new microservices using the most efficient tools and manage them easily. Robust monitoring and advanced security ensure stability and protect user data.

With AppMesh, businesses can be more resilient, creating new products and reacting to unexpected disruptions or opportunities without breaking the bank. Plus ça change, plus ça même chose – the only constant in life is change itself. Plan for change and you’ll always be able to land on your feet.