Skuid CTO: there’s nothing fishy about microservices for mobile

The Computer Weekly Developer Network sat down with Mike Duensing, CTO at Skuid to discuss the state of the developer nation in microservices.

Skuid (pronounced squid) is a low-code cloud-based UX design-and-deploy platform for users to unite data, other applications and processes.

Duensing contends that mobile applications are the driving force behind microservices, but why?

Part of the reason for this is the pace of required change.

“The process of modifying a mobile app and getting the update installed on each user’s device is not a speedy one. So there needs to be a way to move more functionality to back end services and rapidly make enhancements without requiring a full mobile app refresh deployment,” said Duensing.

He also rams home the need for scaling (Ed – nice subtle fishy reference there).

According to Duensing, mobile applications are popular because of the freedom of movement they provide while still being able to access the information users need. This, he says, means that there is a greater opportunity for more concurrent users to exist on a back end system that these apps connect into.

“Monolithic systems that have most or all of the server side functionality on a single system are not scalable and reactive enough for large concurrent user loads typical with many mobile deployments,” said Duensing.

So how do microservices make data more accessible for developers to continuously iterate and deploy enterprise applications?

“A microservices architecture is very conducive to continuous development and deployment iterations. By breaking down a large suite of features into discrete functions, where each runs as its own service that is not tied to any specific server or dependencies, developers are able to create a loosely coupled system of independent functionalities,” said Duensing.

In all, each microservice can do one or a few things very well.

Duensing reminds us that this (above) fact allows each microservice to have specific development teams that are responsible for the functionality on that service. They can enhance the microservice without impacting other services. Mobile apps can benefit from new functionality without the need for a new app deployment.

So how do no-code platforms enable microservices architecture?

According to Duensing, the microservices architecture still has to be built with coding. This is important as a scalable architecture has to return data quickly.

“The advantage of leveraging no-code/low-code platforms with microservices architecture is that it adds more functionality that can be leveraged by front end applications. No-code/low-code platforms with microservices allows developers to quickly access data and build front end applications that can easily consume the back end services,” concluded Duensing.