Microservices have become a popular concept and there has been a lot of buzz about it. The microservices are service-oriented architectures that divide applications into smaller sub-units. Moreover, when companies decide to add microservices to their IT infrastructures, the first thing they want to figure out how much it is going to cost. More importantly, figuring out the cost ahead of time is essential because you do not want to run out of money in the middle of updating your IT infrastructure.

The cost of developing microservices applications depends mainly on the requirements of the enterprise. Notably, here are a few things to determine how much the microservices application is going to cost.

The scale of update:

A major aspect of determining the cost of developing microservices applications is to decide the scale of the update. Moreover, it is always better to start small because it will cost little and let you test whether the update works or not. Starting small gives a clear picture of how much the development stage will cost. There are a lot of tools that are effective in lowering the cost and keeping things under budget.

Maintenance of microservices:

Microservices require maintenance to run efficiently therefore, it is important to consider the maintenance cost while developing these services. Moreover, the microservices increases the maintenance cost of the software system as the number of published API endpoints increases. The bigger the size of the published API more will be the maintenance cost. Hence, it can be lowered by using practices like semantic versioning, continuous delivery, and integration testing.

Distributed systems:

The major characteristic of distributed systems is using message passing to communicate. Other systems use locking and shared memory. The microservices are a distributed system and they come with a lot of engineering challenges.

Here are some of the engineering challenges that play an important role in determining the efficiency and cost of the services. 

Transactions:

The most common abstraction used by most programmers is atomic transactions. These transactions rely on a relational database system. Moreover, the transaction system is a factor in determining the cost of the development of microservices. The complexity of the distributed system determines how costly the construction of microservices is going to be especially in early developmental stages.

The microservice you develop should be able to implement a two-phase commit otherwise there will be issues with the consistency of data across services.

Time across the cluster:

Microservices are distributed systems and they are different from shared memory software. You cannot assume that all the clocks in a network at the same. The requirement for logical synchronization or ordering of events depends on the application. With distributed systems, it is important to figure out a way to achieve an understanding of time across the microservices.

To figure out the budget to address the complex issue of time across clusters you should read up on systems of logical ordering, time synchronization, and algorithm synchronization. Reading up on these things will let you know if you have sufficient budget for initial and subsequent expansion or not.

Foreign keys:

The foreign keys add some constraints to the cost of microservices development as they are not easily available. These keys are useful because they ensure that the data in the system reflects real-world scenarios.

Ad-Hoc querying:

Ad-Hoc querying adds complexity to the infrastructure and creates a substantial amount of extra work as it requires writing extra code. It improves the working of microservices but does increase the development cost.

Conclusion:

Microservices are among the hottest trends of the architecture of web application and they have a lot of benefits to offer but before you decide to invest in their development it is essential to consider the development costing so that you can determine whether you have the required budget or not.

Also read: Website development cost in India

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