Financial Services Monolith Transformation

Background:

ABC Corp, a large financial services enterprise, has been using a monolithic legacy system for their core business operations for many years. The system has become increasingly complex and difficult to maintain, with slow response times, frequent downtime, and limited scalability. ABC Corp decided to invest in a multi-year teach modernization initiative to migrate to the cloud and leverage new technology.

Challenge:

One of the challenges ABC Corp faces is how to transition from their on-prem monolithic legacy system to cloud-based solution without disrupting their existing operations. They need a solution that allows them to gradually migrate their functionalities to the cloud without affecting their current customers, partners, and users.

Solution:

An API routing layer is created that leverages Azure API Management Gateways and App Services to redirect traffic from the monolithic application to new Java microservices as they are developed. The API routing layer acts as a mediator between the monolithic application and the new microservices, allowing ABC Corp to gradually transition from the monolithic architecture to microservices architecture.

Implementation:

Step 1 - Designing the Microservices

We start by identifying the functionalities of the monolithic legacy system that can be broken down into microservices. From there, we analyze the dependencies, business logic, and data flow of the system to determine the optimal microservices architecture. Finally, we begin to develop microservices in Java using modern frameworks and deploy them on Azure App Services, which offers a scalable, managed platform for running web applications.

Step 2 - API Routing Layer

We set up multiple Azure API Management gateways, which are fully managed services that enable creating, publishing, and managing APIs. We create a well-defined and standardized API for each microservice. The APIs are designed to expose the functionalities of the microservices, with proper authentication, authorization, and validation. The API Management Gateways are then configured to route incoming requests from the monolithic application to the respective microservices based on the API endpoints. We also set up policies in the API Management Gateway to manage traffic, such as rate limiting, caching, and security policies, to ensure optimal performance and security.

Step 3 - Redirecting Traffic

As the microservices are developed and deployed on Azure App Services, we begin to redirect traffic from the monolithic application to the microservices using the API Management Gateway. This allows us to transition functionalities from the monolithic system to microservices one by one, at their own pace, without affecting the existing operations.

Step 4 - Monitoring and Managing the System

We use Azure's monitoring and logging features to monitor the performance, availability, and security of the system. Alerts and notifications are set up to proactively detect and resolve issues. We also use Azure's tools to manage the microservices, such as scaling, versioning, and deployment, to ensure optimal performance and maintainability.

Benefits:

Scalability - The microservices architecture allows ABC Corp to scale individual functionalities independently based on their demand, providing better performance and user experience. With Azure's App Services, they can easily scale up or down their microservices as needed, ensuring optimal resource utilization and cost efficiency.

Maintainability - Breaking down the monolithic system into microservices makes it easier to maintain and update functionalities independently, reducing the complexity and risk of system-wide changes. Azure's API Management Gateway provides a central location to manage all APIs, making it convenient for ABC Corp to version, monitor, and secure their microservices APIs from a single, unified platform.

Agility - The API routing layer using Azure's API Management Gateway allows ABC Corp to gradually transition from the monolithic architecture to microservices architecture, providing flexibility and agility in their modernization journey. They can develop and deploy microservices at their own pace and easily update the routing rules in the API Management Gateway to redirect traffic to new microservices as they are developed, without impacting the existing operations.

Security - Azure API Management offers advanced security features, such as authentication, authorization, and validation, which help ABC Corp secure their APIs and protect their system from potential security threats. They can enforce security policies, such as rate limiting and caching, in the API Management Gateway, ensuring that only authorized traffic is routed to the microservices, enhancing the overall security posture of their system.

Conclusion:

Using this strategy, we were able to successfully break down ABC Corp's monolithic legacy system into microservices architecture. We were able to transition from the monolithic architecture to microservices gradually, ensuring minimal disruption to their existing operations. The scalability, maintainability, agility, and security benefits offered by this approach empowered ABC Corp to modernize their system and improve its performance, maintainability, and security. Azure's API Management Gateway and App Services provided the necessary tools and features to allow ABC Corp to scale out to over 150 million requests per minute and serve over 97 million users.