Enables experimentation and innovation

Modern enterprises are thriving toward quick wins. Microservices is one of the key enablers for enterprises to do disruptive innovation by offering the ability to experiment and Fail Fast.

Since services are fairly simple and smaller in size, enterprises can afford to experiment with new processes, algorithms, business logic, and more. With large monolithic applications, experimentation was not easy, straightforward, or cost effective. Businesses had to spend a large sum of money to build or change an application to try out something new. With microservices, it is possible to write a small microservice to achieve the targeted functionality, and plug it into the system in a reactive style. One can then experiment with the new function for a few months. Moreover, if the new microservice is not working as expected, change or replace it with another one. The cost of change will be considerably less compared to the monolithic approach:

In another example of an airline booking website, the airline wants to show personalized hotel recommendations in their booking page. The recommendations have to be displayed on the booking confirmation page.

As shown in the preceding diagram, it is convenient to write a microservice that can be plugged into the monolithic applications booking flow rather than incorporating this requirement in the monolithic application itself. The airline may choose to start with a simple recommendation service, and keep replacing it with newer versions until it meets the required accuracy.