Amazon Prime Video recently shared a case study about their decision to replace their serverless, microservices architecture with a monolith. The result? A 90% reduction in operating costs and a simpler system. This is a big win and it highlights a larger point for our industry: microservices may not always be the answer.
The Prime Video team initially designed their system as a distributed system using serverless components, with the idea that they could scale each component independently. However, they hit a hard scaling limit at around 5% of the expected load.
This experience shows that in practice, microservices can actually complicate your system unnecessarily. While service-oriented architectures like microservices make perfect sense at the scale of Amazon, it can wreak havoc when it's pushed into the internals of a single-application architecture.
It's important to note that microservices are not a one-size-fits-all solution. Instead, we should evaluate our options and choose what works best for our specific use case. In many cases, a monolith may be the way to go.
This doesn't mean we should abandon microservices altogether, but rather approach them with a critical eye. We should consider the complexity of our system, the scalability needs, and the maintenance costs when making architecture decisions.
Let's not get caught up in buzzwords or the latest trends. Instead, let's focus on finding the best solution for our unique challenges. The lessons from Amazon Prime Video show that sometimes, a simpler approach can be more effective.
Reference :
Reference :
https://www.primevideotech.com/video-streaming/scaling-up-the-prime-video-audio-video-monitoring-service-and-reducing-costs-by-90
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