InA2rMS: Instrumento de apoio à Avaliação da Arquitetura de MicrosServiço

Abstract

The demand for more efficient and systematic approaches to system development is constantly increasing. Some architectural styles have emerged as responses to traditional monolithic approaches to system construction. As a result, large companies have been transitioning from Monolithic Architecture (MOA) to Microservices Architecture (MSA). MSA has gained prominence in the last decade due to its suitability for cloud-native technologies and its distributed nature. The MSA can provide several benefits for organizations, such as improvement in feature management and reuse, agility, maintenance, deployment, and delivery processes, enhancing cost efficiency related to the software lifecycle. Due to its complexity, MSA becomes challenging for architects and software developers. Considering its distributed nature, its development requires a clear understanding of the necessary features and the resources involved to implement them. In light of this scenario, the conceptual analysis of the features in relation to the domain, weighing their relevance and identifying their relationships, can support the evaluation of the compliance to this architecture’s features. In this sense, this work aims to provide a tool to support the analysis and evaluation of microservices (MS) concerning their adherence to the features of MSA, allowing the degree of compliance with these features to be expressed through an information visualization strategy. To achieve this objective, an approach is proposed that consists of a features model, a glossary of terms, an evaluation questionnaire integrated with a data visualization technique, to support architects and developers during the evaluation of MS. Studies were conducted with the purpose of verifying the suitability and applicability of the approach. The results provide positive evidence regarding the adoption of the approach in the processes of building and maintaining MS. It is believed that this work can holistically assist architects and development teams in understanding and evaluating the diverse features involved in MSA, enhancing the overall development process