I feel that I'm a proponent of microservices that has only ever worked on monolithic apps.
> I cannot think of the "monolithic" variation they depicted as a "service-oriented architecture" of any kind.
I think you're on the right track here. Note that the article uses "monolithic application", not "monolithic services"; it really is the lack of services.
> unless "services" is synonymous with "API" and for my part that is too general a definition to be of much use
I agree that that is too general. To me, a microservice would of course expose an API, but whereas a monolithic application exposes the entire application (or, perhaps, the entire API for everything your company does…), a microservice is exposing a small facet of the overall application, and is only responsible for that facet.
I probably agree with you that "services" is probably what most of us are after; I think the "micro" may just be an attempt to re-emphasize that it shouldn't be one huge thing, and that perhaps you should split services off sooner, rather than later, as it only ever gets harder.
Then again, I've never worked with in a microservices-oriented architecture.
> I cannot think of the "monolithic" variation they depicted as a "service-oriented architecture" of any kind.
I think you're on the right track here. Note that the article uses "monolithic application", not "monolithic services"; it really is the lack of services.
> unless "services" is synonymous with "API" and for my part that is too general a definition to be of much use
I agree that that is too general. To me, a microservice would of course expose an API, but whereas a monolithic application exposes the entire application (or, perhaps, the entire API for everything your company does…), a microservice is exposing a small facet of the overall application, and is only responsible for that facet.
I probably agree with you that "services" is probably what most of us are after; I think the "micro" may just be an attempt to re-emphasize that it shouldn't be one huge thing, and that perhaps you should split services off sooner, rather than later, as it only ever gets harder.
Then again, I've never worked with in a microservices-oriented architecture.