Source URL: https://monzo.com/blog/how-we-run-migrations-across-2800-microservices
Source: Hacker News
Title: We run migrations across 2,800 microservices
Feedly Summary: Comments
AI Summary and Description: Yes
**Summary:** The text discusses Monzo’s approach to managing migrations within a microservices architecture. It emphasizes centralized library updates to reduce overhead and risks, leveraging a strong automation strategy and planning processes to ensure no downtime during migrations. This is highly relevant for professionals considering efficient deployment and migration strategies in cloud-based and service-oriented architectures.
**Detailed Description:**
The blog post outlines Monzo’s experiences with migrations in a microservices architecture, detailing their structured approach in handling library upgrades and migrations effectively. Key points of insight for security, cloud, and infrastructure professionals include:
– **Centrally Driven Migrations:**
– Monzo favors a single team managing migrations to minimize coordination overhead, avoid project stalls, and maintain consistency across services.
– This approach is particularly critical in high-stakes environments (e.g., financial services) where downtime must be avoided.
– **Technological Foundations:**
– **Consistency in Technology Choices:** All services share the same programming language (Go) and the same versions of libraries, facilitating easier upgrades and dependency management.
– **Monorepo Strategy:** Housing all service code in a single repository simplifies mass refactoring and enhances consistency across teams.
– **Automation Utilization:**
– Heavy reliance on automated deployment tools for library changes, allowing quick rollbacks if issues arise.
– Emphasizes the importance of the 80/20 rule in automation; leveraging automation for common changes while handling unique cases manually to optimize efficiency.
– **Migration Strategy Steps:**
1. **Planning and Alignment:** Involvement of engineers in the planning process encourages collaboration and transparency. Processes include proposals for changes and architecture reviews to address potential risks.
2. **Library Wrapping:** Implementing old library interfaces while introducing new ones allows smooth transitions without immediate code changes across the board.
3. **Call-Site Updates:** Utilizes both automated tools for common function calls and manual approaches for less frequently referenced cases.
4. **Mass Deployment:** Capability to deploy changes asynchronously across services by strategically prioritizing those deemed least critical initially.
5. **Controlled Rollout via Config:** Enables quick activations of new library capabilities while allowing immediate rollbacks, thus managing risk effectively.
6. **Cleanup:** Post-migration removal of deprecated library code to reduce payload.
– **Impact on Team Dynamics and Culture:**
– Creating an environment where migration ownership is centralized increases the motivation to enhance tooling and improves the overall technical landscape of the organization.
– **Conclusion:** Monzo recognizes the importance of centralized migration strategies and continued investment in automation tools, which leads to more efficient processes, enhancing consistency and reducing long-term effort.
This detailed examination underscores the critical lessons learned in managing large-scale changes within a microservices infrastructure, offering valuable takeaways for organizations aiming to streamline their own migration and deployment processes within the cloud ecosystem.