Finally, we arrive at everyone's favorite "cool-kid" architecture, Microservices. We actually don't spend a lot of time describing the topology and features of microservices, which are well documented pretty much everywhere. Instead, we chatted about things that don't fit in a book: the origins of microservices, why it worked, where it hasn't worked well, and the lessons we've learned with more than a decade of this architectural style. Come join us for a wide-ranging conversation not without some controversy but always collegial.

Continuing our survey of architectures styles, we uncover a style that is surging in popularity over the last few years, the modular monolith. Inspired by the principles in Domain-driven Design, this style tries to achieve many of the benefits of microservices but inside the convenience of a monolithic architecture. Join us as we talk about the properties of this style, when it's a better alternative to others (including microservices), and more about this popular style.

Continuing on our survey of architectural styles, this month we brush against Orchestration-driven Service-oriented Architecture (SOA), a dinosaur that roamed the earth more than a decade ago but contains many lessons that led to microservices and related architectures. In this episode, we describe the topology of SOA, the goals and motivations, and why it failed, along with some important lessons. Not just rants about the problems in SOA (although there are a few), this episode highlights how and why we went through that architectural waystation.