Apply the Strangler Application pattern to microservices applications

If you’re like me, you’re constantly reading articles and blogs about new development tools, new development and operations practices, or new architectural principles. The problem is that too often, these practices or architectural principles might look great on paper, or perhaps would work out fine if you were to implement them in a brand new (greenfield) application, but it’s not quite as clear how you would implement them in an existing application.

However, we live in a world where brownfield applications—existing apps that were not built according to all the latest approaches, or using the latest tools—are more common. This is particularly true of the microservices architecture. Most of the development teams I talk to think microservices sound like a great idea, but they’re not sure how they can start using them since they are currently working with huge monolithic applications.

Thus, it’s great when you come across a solution that’s really helpful in situations like this, and that’s true of Martin Fowler’s Strangler Application pattern. And even though he wrote it prior to the development of the microservices architecture, this pattern offers excellent guidance to teams that want to move to a microservices approach.