A Comprehensive Guide to Service Splitting in Microservice Architecture
This article systematically explores the challenges of microservice service splitting—from technical choices and architectural reliability to business model validation and team collaboration—offering static and dynamic solutions, design principles, and practical guidelines for effective service decomposition.
Microservice service splitting can be confusing; this article introduces the problem from multiple perspectives in a systematic, comprehensive, and unified manner.
Problem Definition : It examines where service division issues arise, including technical choices (vertical vs. horizontal slicing), aggregation challenges, architectural concerns such as availability, reliability, security, scalability, business model validation speed, inter‑team collaboration, integration of new business lines, and enterprise development planning.
Need for a Unified View : Service splitting is a complex domain that requires holistic consideration, involving static and dynamic partitioning rules. The discussion categorises issues into company‑strategy level, business‑management level, technical‑architecture level, and implementation level, and distinguishes between static and dynamic solutions.
Solution Principles :
Three ways to solve problems: abstraction, decomposition, and knowledge.
Global and systemic thinking.
Service centers continuously evolve as business grows.
Diverse service forms (business services, tool services, data services, etc.).
Service centers can evolve into service groups.
Static Partitioning Solutions :
Company‑Strategy Layer : Treat each service as a capability, using a large‑middle‑platform concept to solidify core business and enable innovation.
Business‑Management Layer : View business as flows; map each flow to services, as illustrated by Alibaba’s architecture (image).
Technical‑Architecture Layer : Apply four design principles, 19 solutions, DDD, architectural patterns, and other technical considerations (image).
Implementation Layer : Ensure data consistency, CAP, and BASE principles.
Dynamic Partitioning Solutions : Emphasise evolution and decision‑making processes, requiring a governance group to decide on integrating new business lines into the platform (image).
Additional topics include lean product thinking, legacy system refactoring (referencing "Microservices Architecture and Practice" 2nd edition), and a list of reference materials such as CMMI5, TOGAF 9.1, and Alibaba’s middle‑platform strategy.
Disclaimer : The shared materials are collected from the internet, copyright belongs to original authors, and the article is for learning and exchange only.
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