Right now, in software development, microservices are trending. Many of the big players in search, entertainment, and online retail have already made the shift. So what’s the appeal?

From mono to micro

Monolithic architecture is built around a single source, so that any changes require an updated version of the application from the server side. Microservices architecture works a little differently. 

Rather than combining the user interface and data access code into a single program, microservices are disassembled into loosely coupled, independent services – which offers developers a number of benefits.  

Let’s take a closer look at some of the lessons we’ve learned helping clients make the journey from monolith to microservices.

Why go micro?

Resilience: One of the key advantages of microservices is that if one service fails, the application continues to run. So with microservices, if one aspect of a system goes down, the impact on business is much less compared with single service architecture – where there’s always a danger of the entire system going down. 

Cost Effectiveness: At the same time, the independence of microservices means they can be scaled autonomously. For example, if a website’s chat service is in high demand, the chat can be scaled independently, saving resources. Separate service scalability is also cost-effective because you’re only scaling something that’s in demand.

Should your startup choose mono or micro?

Microservices facilitate scalability in growing businesses. Doing so too soon may be overkill. They’re not always the right choice for a brand new startup, because their effectiveness only really comes into play when there are larger volumes of users, and you have clear oversight of which services you need to scale. 

Also a team’s needed to manage microservices effectively – not ideal for a new startup who needs to move fast and build rather than maintain their tech stack; especially when resources and costs are already stretched.

However, for a growing application or SaaS, microservices make sense because they give you the scope to scale quickly, more frequently, and more selectively. They offer greater flexibility in terms of how you grow, and which direction you take.

Compliments from the cloud

Because microservices architecture is by its very nature granular, and broken down into components, it’s easier to maintain and improve. Having evolved alongside cloud-based solutions, microservices are highly compatible with platforms like Amazon’s AWS and Microsoft’s Azure. 

In this way, microservices can be managed and monitored from anywhere, out of the box. This effectively means less time and effort spent on managing the architecture and a greater focus on application.

However, for microservices to work, they need a level of organizational readiness. And workable solutions can only happen with the understanding of everyone involved.

Using micro to go big

For smaller businesses with less than half a million customers, microservices architecture is not a prerequisite for functionality. However, for businesses that want to scale big, it’s a worthwhile investment.

One of our clients approached us because their microservice architecture was unfinished, and their lead developer was leaving. So Proshore was brought in to pick up where the lead developer had left off.

After our first meeting, we were aligned on our ways of thinking, and we met with the technical team. The organization was definitely microservice-ready, but they needed a development team to help continue the transition from monolith to micro. 

And then we uncovered some key challenges.

Don’t rush production

The implementation of microservices architecture was taking longer than the client anticipated. Due to the lead developer leaving, they needed a swift handover, and had gone into production too quickly. What we found was just a codebase. It was not a suite of microservices. 

As people started using this application, a lot of bugs started to emerge. So the Proshore team reached an impasse: should we focus on building features or monitoring for bugs?

We also uncovered one microservice that was stateful, not stateless. Because it was storing information and reacting differently to the same inputs, it would crash when there were lots of processes taking place at once. In turn, it would then crash the other services.

Scaling back to scale forward

Bringing Proshore on board enabled the client to scale more sustainably – by scaling back. Over the course of several months, we understood that the way we were moving wasn’t the right direction. However, further investigation showed a need to focus on fewer microservices at once, and ensure that effective monitoring was taking place. 

Overall, with microservices, there are many aspects to consider depending on your business, and customer demands, from payment to email. Scaling sustainably is a long-term solution that requires robust testing and quality-assured roll-outs.

The value that Proshore offers is true consultancy and expertise. Our experience in scalable software development solutions makes us a valuable partner in your growth. 

Our ‘development team as a service’ can help with strategy — as well as the technical stuff.

There’s no question that IT infrastructure is heading in one direction: towards the Cloud. For established, legacy businesses who are at the beginning of their digital transformation journey, moving to the Cloud completely might be a hard sell. After all, their current server-based systems work, so why should they change?

However, for emerging startups, even those without experience of Cloud computing, the business benefits of being a Cloud-first organisation from the get-go are obvious. Leveraging the immediate advantages of Cloud-based technology offers viability, reliability, scalability, and security. But what exactly does this mean for a scaling start-up? We drill down a bit deeper into the benefits of the Cloud for early-stage start-ups and scale-ups.

Severing The Server

With traditional servers, the process of getting your business IT infrastructure set up and secured is much more complicated than in the Cloud. Typically, you contact the service provider with your specifications, they send out servers to you, and you’re left to ensure that everything is securely set up on your premises. This can be a time-consuming process which relies on manual intervention, and effectively requires another person to be responsible for monitoring and maintaining the system.

Having someone manually managing the servers can be time-consuming and expensive, and this added layer of accountability actually distracts from the main goal of iteratively developing and improving your product, particularly in the early stages when you may have a small team, or you’re only a one or two-person business. Not only that, it requires more complex resource planning such as: what kind of servers you need, what software you require, and the right type of product licensing.

One of the reasons businesses are moving to the Cloud is that they have more power and authority to set up systems their own way in just a few clicks.

Babish Shrestha, Proshore

Director of Technology

Migrating To The Cloud

With a Cloud-based solution, everything is there for you straight out of the box. This is a tremendous advantage for an early-stage start-up, because you can use a lot of pre-built features that are already available in the Cloud. These features enable start-ups to put together their minimum viable product (MVP) and validate it much quicker. Without the complicated set-up of traditional servers, Cloud computing streamlines the whole process of setting up IT infrastructure, so that your business can focus on getting your product to market much faster.

Fast implementation is one of the ways that digital products can benefit from the Cloud. Not having the hassle of manually maintaining servers is another. And being able to focus on the product itself is a third.

Jeroen van der Horst, Proshore

Director of Accounts

Scaling Securely

Scaling is one of the most obvious factors for choosing a Cloud-based solution to business IT infrastructure because it’s much simpler to do in the Cloud compared with running your own servers.

One of our clients, Bayes, specializes in helping venture capitalists to hire specialists in different kinds of fields on short term contracts. It’s a platform that gives access to a wide network of experts. Due to the nature of their business, they hold a large volume of sensitive data, such as contact details. So it is essential for the company to have a secure and robust IT solution.

In the Cloud, we could very easily separate out their data into tiers, enabling users to access data necessary to perform day-to-day tasks, whilst keeping more sensitive data hidden and secure. Secondly, we could make the system more scalable over time, so that when the organization began to grow, and more people joined, there would be capacity available for new users to gain access to the systems.

Using traditional servers, the process of setting this up would have been very time-consuming. Security engineers and monitoring systems would have needed to be in place: a lot of additional tools and expenses to ensure everything was working properly. Whereas with the Cloud, set up was much easier and more flexible. In just a few clicks and some minor configurations, everything was ready to go. Not only that, there was peace of mind, control, and oversight in terms of security settings and features.

Scaling With SaaS

Another of our clients, Qaasaa, offers an online platform for helping real estate landlords and tenants to manage their communication. The software was originally developed as an in-house solution for the growing number of properties in their own portfolio. There was a clear need for a simple and affordable way to handle the necessary communications between landlords and tenants, such as repair requests. However, they soon realized the potential for making their software more widely available to property managers and owners around the world. So they decided to turn it into SaaS (software as a service).

In order to provide the scalability they required, a Cloud-based solution was the obvious choice. It also enabled the business to become more flexible and future-proof. This means that when larger clients are now looking to embed the platform into their own systems, it will be ready to scale at speed. At the same time, the benefit of the Cloud is that they can count on the security of the platform to handle personal details and information about payments.

Scaling Ecommerce From The Ground Up

The Cloud also provides an ideal platform for emerging ecommerce retailers who need to incorporate vast amounts of products, data, and transactions. Take Blinqed, for example, an app that connects hospitality entrepreneurs with their suppliers from the food sector, helping them to digitize and streamline both purchases and sales. When we collaborated with them, the business was looking for a way to bring their product to life and a technical team who could speed up the time to market using proven Agile ways of working.

We encouraged them to continue with a Cloud-based solution which would free them up from managing their own servers, whilst enabling them to take advantage of existing Cloud ecosystems, such as AWS Lambda. Utilizing microservices, the Cloud offered them a broad range of out-of-the-box functionality to pick and choose from (such as email and SMS) in order to meet their business needs, and without forcing them to engage with multiple third-party vendors.

Final Thoughts On Scaling In The Cloud

In line with our clients’ needs, at Proshore our expertise covers the full range of Cloud providers, including Google, Azure and AWS. Our experience also covers organizations who use their own private Cloud. Whatever the solution, the Cloud offers total flexibility to scale young businesses. There’s even the potential to create hybrid solutions which combine on-premise and Cloud-based technologies.

No matter how you’ve started out, it’s always possible to bring your business into Cloud to leverage the true potential of the available services and maximize your scalability. For start-ups, it’s a matter of choice as to how you use the Cloud. If you don’t have the capacity to manage your own servers, the Cloud is an obvious choice. The key question for start-ups is: do you want to spend your time managing servers, or do you want to focus on developing your product?

A Cloud setup might seem costly in the first place, but it’s an investment in future scalability. You only have to look at companies like Netflix who started small then scaled globally, via the Cloud (where they still are today). And although the initial outlay can be expensive, the time and resources saved by not using a managed server, alongside the Cloud’s potential for scalability and longer term savings, make it a great choice for start-ups looking to grow their business.

The great thing about microservices is that if one of your software services fails, the rest of the system stays online. For global streaming giants and hyperscalers with teams of developers handling multiple services – container orchestration makes a lot of sense.

For the rest of us, with a small team of developers working on one or two business-critical products, is it really necessary to invest in a container orchestration system such as Kubernetes, Red Hat OpenShift, Docker Swarm, or Rancher?

The short answer is no. And the good news is that it’s possible to power a scalable microservice architecture without using Kubernetes or the like. The question is how?

Let’s start by taking a closer look at microservices.

What are microservices?​

In software development, microservices is an architectural style and organizational approach which breaks down applications into a loosely coupled collection of independent services that communicate via application programming interfaces (API).

The alternative is the more traditional monolithic architecture, in which all the processes run as a single service. The problem with monolithic architecture is that to scale one service, you have to scale the entire application.

Electrical circuits provide a good analogy for microservices versus monolithic architecture:

• Monolithic architecture is comparable to bulbs running on a series circuit – if one bulb blows, the entire string of bulbs goes out, and each bulb must be tested or checked to see which one has blown
• Microservices are similar to bulbs running on a parallel circuit – when one bulb blows, the others keep working, and the blown bulb is easy to identify and replace.

Right now, in software development, microservices are trending. And with good reason. The main benefit of microservices is that they are loosely coupled and deployed separately, and therefore easier to independently scale. This means maintenance and testing can take place on a particular service, without disrupting other functionality.

With microservices, which lend themselves to an Agile approach to software development, applications can be developed and scaled much faster. This type of architecture also makes it much more convenient to implement innovative and new features and expedite the time to market.  You can read more about the advantages of microservices in our blog post about making the journey from monolith to microservices.

“With container orchestration systems like Kubernetes, your developers have to learn an extra technology stack – things like deployment, deployment services, and APIs. And there are time and cost implications associated with that.”

Babish ShresthaDirector of Technology, Proshore

Why use a container orchestration system?​

Container orchestration systems enable you to manage and control the deployment and scaling of multiple containerized services. It’s especially useful when you have a large number of microservices because you can essentially orchestrate highly available services with limited configuration.

As we’ve already discussed, when services are loosely-coupled like this, it gives you greater flexibility to scale specific features, and more control when a particular feature needs attention, without bringing down the entire system. With the right code, using an orchestration system can also introduce a certain level of automation to your workflows.

Larger organizations could be running hundreds, or even thousands, of microservices which they manage through a container orchestration system. They’re ideal for large and complex organizations which are scaling at pace because they provide limitless scalability and can be run anywhere, whether that’s on premise, in the cloud, or in a hybrid environment. Of course, with containers, it’s also possible to pick up and deploy the same features across different environments.

But whether you’re self-hosting or opting for a managed solution, running a container orchestration system – even one that’s open source – can be expensive in terms of operational costs, training, and staffing.

“The good news is you can still build microservices using readily available cloud platforms, a serverless platform where you can replicate the same benefits of Kubernetes, without the need to learn a new programming language and how to manage it effectively.”

Babish ShresthaDirector of Technology, Proshore

The advantages of running serverless microservices​

There’s no denying the business benefits of developing your software product using a microservice architecture. It provides:

• Greater flexibility to scale a particular application feature, rather than the entire app, saving time, money, and disruption to services.
• The opportunity for development teams to work autonomously on a specific microservice, thereby shortening development cycles and time to market.
• The freedom to test our new features through a process of continuous improvement, with easy roll back should you need it.
• Building blocks of code which have the potential to be reused for other features, therefore saving development time and decreasing the time to market.

But for many small and medium-sized software companies, it’s likely that the cost in time and resources in learning, setting up, deploying a container orchestration system will outweigh the business benefits – unless it fundamentally enables your business to overcome a specific challenge. But that doesn’t mean you can’t leverage the benefits of a microservice architecture. The alternative? Have you considered going serverless?

Cloud solutions like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud provide a ready-made infrastructure which enables you to run code without managing servers. It’s cost-effective, because you only pay for what you use in terms of compute time and your containers are managed, so orchestration and security are taken out of your hands.

With a serverless solution, your containers are still portable, and it still provides the scalability you need without paying out for a container orchestration system. Another advantage of a serverless solution is that within the ecosystem, there are already existing ready-made services and software as a service (SaaS). These can save valuable development time, and speed up the development time through the use of pre-made services such as authentication and API gateways.

In a recent project, Proshore helped to deploy microservices for an e-commerce platform serving multiple buyers with thousands of products. With a container orchestration system, it would have taken around 2 months to train developers in how to manage the system before development could even begin.

To build this application in microservice architecture, a microservice backend was built in AWS Lambda using language such as NodeJS and Python. AWS Aurora was used as a main database with master slave architecture. An AWS API gateway was used to connect backend to frontend and other devices. The front end was hosted in EC2 instance. Besides this, other AWS services were used for caching, large batch jobs, and messaging.

To find out how Proshore helped the platform to seamlessly sync thousands of different product prices and data from different ERP systems, every day, read our blog post on ERP excellence.

The benefits of deploying microservices over traditional monolith architecture are well known – they’re much easier to scale, and more resilient if one service fails. This begs the question: is there still a place for monolith architecture? 

The short answer is ‘yes’. As we mentioned in our previous post on migrating clients from monolith to microservices – for some companies, microservices are not always the best fit for their needs. In fact, a ready-to-code development team from Proshore recently helped a client, Psyflix, migrate a set of microservices to a single server to optimize their streaming platform.

Here are 5 reasons why companies might choose monolith architecture over microservices. 

1️⃣ Keep development costs down

With microservices, you need a full-stack team to manage them effectively – something unfeasible for many startups. Without a dedicated team, microservices can easily spiral out of control, whereas monolith architecture can be easily handled by a single developer. 

Building out microservices in a system like Kubernetes is expensive, and an unnecessary outlay when a product doesn’t yet have high volumes of users. With one or two thousand users, a single server is a viable option. A single codebase is also much easier to develop without the need to bring in a range of coding expertise. That makes monolith architecture ideal for early-stage startups with limited resources. 

2️⃣ Faster development and testing

Running different microservices at the same time automatically makes them more complex to manage and maintain. Without proper management, having multiple teams responsible for different microservices, development and debugging can slow down. 

As monolith architecture uses a single executable file, it’s much quicker to test and deploy. That makes end-to-end testing much faster, and because it’s a single codebase, development, and debugging are also much more straightforward. 

3️⃣ Minimize disruption to services

With microservices, if there are issues with one part of the system, then other features can usually still run unaffected. One drawback of monolith architecture is that if something goes wrong – a single error might impact other parts of the system. However, there is a robust workaround.

Developers working in monolith architecture can overcome disruptions to a service by deploying a technique known as Server Side Generation (SSG). This hybrid approach is a combination of Server Side Rendering (SSR) and Client Side Rendering (CSR). 

What it effectively does is generate static HTML pages that incorporate client-side JavaScript, so a page can be updated as and when needed. This means that, for example, if a user has begun watching a video and there’s an issue elsewhere – their viewing stream continues uninterrupted.

4️⃣ Scalability is still a possibility 

Microservices are great for scaling businesses that need the ability to scale specific components up or down based on user demand. But to a certain extent, this is also possible with monolith architecture. 

For example, you might initially combine 4 or 5 core microservices onto a single server in a monolith architecture. Additional microservices could be added and connected to it and scaled as needed by adding more containers. 

5️⃣ Optimize resources to meet demand

What a software product offers users, the features used most frequently, and the frequency of use all impact what’s needed to ensure a smooth and seamless user experience.

If you’re dealing with a few thousand users who use a limited number of features – such as watching videos or downloading materials – for short periods of time, monolith architecture might be the best match for your needs. This will also save you unnecessary costs associated with building and maintaining multiple microservices.  

Further down the line, when you’re running into millions of users around the world, splitting your product into microservices makes more sense, as famously demonstrated by the streaming giant Netflix. The beauty of monolith architecture is that both user capacity and cost are good indicators of when the time is right for microservices. 

Making the case for monolith

It’s tempting for startups to jump straight into microservices without fully appreciating the potential advantages – including cost-savings – of monolith architecture. Development, deployment, and debugging can all be much more straightforward and easy to manage in monolith. On top of that, fewer APIs are needed to connect particular functionality.

For companies with a rapidly growing user base – from tens to hundreds of thousands of users in a short space of time, monolith probably isn’t the right choice. But for early-stage startups with limited resources and uncertainty about their rate of expansion, monolith gives them a solid starting point.  

The good news for companies starting on the wrong path, the migration back from microservices to monolith architecture is not as painful as you might think. In our experience, there’s around a day of downtime. 

With a ready-to-code development team from Proshore, you can also rest assured that when it’s the right time to make the move to microservices – we have the skills and experience to ensure a smooth transition. 

In fact, we make it easy to switch back to microservices should you need to scale up in the future. For more on this, see our posts on making the move from monolith to microservices and how to scale microservices without using Kubernetes.

From monolith to microservices: What we’ve learned from helping clients make that journey

Read more

How to scale microservices without using Kubernetes

Read more

Discover how Proshore’s dedicated teams can support your migration to and from monolith and microservices – book a call.

Cloud computing – the delivery of computer services and resources over the Internet –  gives companies a number of strategic advantages. But before diving in, it’s worth having a clear overview of the pitfalls and best practices, so you can get the best return on investment. 

Factors to consider are your business maturity, business goals, and existing IT infrastructure. Each of these will influence whether it’s the right time to move to the cloud. Here’s our guide to the best practices for cloud computing.

Why choose cloud computing?

There are many reasons why companies move to the cloud. One reason is that they can tap into a suite of ready-made services that help speed up development time. Cloud computing platforms such as Microsoft Azure also provide reliable recovery and backup, and robust security measures, ensuring business continuity and data security. 

For scaling companies, the on-demand delivery of computing resources provides a simple and accessible way to scale when they need it, without a hefty outlay of in-house IT professionals, on-premise servers, and equipment. But the cloud also comes with its own pitfalls.

Some companies decide to move to the cloud without properly considering why. To make it the right move for your business, you need to identify the benefits first. Simply making the switch won’t automatically solve all your IT challenges.     

Pitfalls to avoid with cloud computing 

There are three main pitfalls with cloud computing. The first is cost. Done right, cloud computing is cost-effective – you only pay for what you use. But it’s easy to overlook other costs such as deployment, operating expenses, and the cost of in-house IT professionals.

Second, whilst cloud computing offers savings against on-premise servers – and their ongoing maintenance – it also requires specific IT skills. Not every software developer is a cloud engineer. A skilled coder can be unfamiliar with cloud solutions. If cloud maintenance presents a steep learning curve to your development team, things like debugging can become a real challenge.

Third, like on-premise, cloud computing if left unmanaged can quickly become complicated and chaotic. In particular, enterprises may end up using multiple cloud providers or a combination of on-premise and cloud services. It doesn’t take long for solutions to be complex and over-engineered. This is especially true when companies choose a cloud service provider that’s misaligned with their needs and get locked into the wrong solution.

7 best practices for the cloud

Now you know some of the reasons why companies move to the cloud – and the main pitfalls to avoid – here are some best practices to follow:

1️⃣ Establish a clear cloud strategy

The best way to make cloud computing work for your business is to have a clear strategy. A lot depends on the services you need to use and your existing in-house expertise. The cloud isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution.

For instance, you might have a service that needs to be deployed – or will run more efficiently – in the cloud. Similarly, you might already have the internal resources to successfully run your IT on-premise. 

Your IT strategy needs to consider the product fit, organizational fit, and how your existing resources match up with a cloud solution. 

2️⃣ Choose the right cloud provider

The big techs – Microsoft, Google, and AWS – all offer cloud services. It’s the cost of those solutions and the in-house knowledge needed to manage them that varies. 

The type of managed services you need also comes into play. Having a library of rebuilt components is a great time-saver, but you’ll also need a layer of customization and configuration to make out-of-the-box functionality work for you. 

Making the right choice means weighing up the costs alongside your own in-house technical expertise. For example, if you have strong in-house knowledge in Google, then that will probably be the best option for you.

3️⃣ Implement advanced security

You’re going to get similar levels of security and reliability from any of the big cloud providers. Key considerations include where your data is stored – as different countries have different regulations – protecting your API, and restricting access.

Data is the new gold. Keeping your company and customer data safe is a top priority, as well as compliance with regulations such as the GDPR. If you’re handling sensitive or protected data, you need the right knowledge to implement advanced-level security measures. 

4️⃣ Select a cost-effective back-up

With both on-premise and the cloud, you pay for your storage space. The key difference is the costs you incur and how you account for them. On-premise is a capital expense that also incurs operational expenses. You’re dealing with physical devices that require ongoing maintenance by technical experts.

Your cloud storage costs are relative to how much space you need, which can quickly grow if you’re holding multiple backups in the cloud. That’s why planning your backup options is important. 

One of the key advantages of the cloud is that it provides high levels of availability. What that means is that your cloud services are always on. If a data center or server goes down, another server will take over – creating a seamless experience for end-users. 

5️⃣ Optimize your resources and scalability

The cloud provides much more flexibility when it comes to the scalability of your resources. You can dynamically adjust the number of servers in use in response to traffic and geographic location, bringing servers offline during less busy periods and increasing capacity at peak times. 

Say you have product services and payment processing, for example. You might need to scale one of these services and not the other in order to meet demand. With cloud computing, that’s really straightforward, and it can be done both manually and automatically.

6️⃣ Monitor services and performance

One of the biggest challenges of the cloud is understanding how it works. Thankfully, cloud services are much easier to monitor due to built-in analytics tools. Dashboards can be as simple or as complex as you need them to be. 

By putting this kind of oversight and control in the hands of your cloud engineers, it’s much easier to optimize your services and minimize interruptions or problems affecting your service. It’s also a powerful way to visualize performance and supports conversation with nontechnical people at C-level.

7️⃣ Build in-house expertise and skills

As we’ve already mentioned, cloud engineers need an additional layer of skills and knowledge on top of what’s needed for regular software development. All developers working within the cloud need a cloud computing mindset. It’s not possible to work on a specific feature without this knowledge. 

For that reason, your developers need to have a training mentality to develop the right skill set, otherwise, you can encounter problems further down the line. Alternatively, you can bring offshore development teams who already have the required knowledge.

Cloud computing engineers from Proshore

At Proshore, we understand that cloud computing isn’t right for every business. That’s why we help customers of all sizes – from startups to enterprises – add development capacity by matching the right technical expertise to their needs. 

Whether you need experienced cloud computing engineers, on-premise expertise, or an entire development team as a service, we cherry-pick the right tech talent from our ever-growing talent pool in Nepal.

Need highly-skilled and ready-to-code developers for cloud computing? At Proshore, we have the expertise you need. Book a call today.

Like any construction project, coding platforms need a blueprint and a structure – an architecture – that enables projects to take shape. Microservices are a popular style of architecture for web apps. Here at Proshore our web developers are experts in using the open source, web app framework Laravel to build microservices.

Why microservices?

Before we dive into what makes Laravel and Proshore a great combination for building microservices, let’s explore why microservices might be a good fit for your software product.

In the microservices approach to software architecture, an application is built from a number of small, independent services that communicate with each other through Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). With microservices, each individual service is designed to perform a specific business function. When you think about it, the structure of microservices reflects the structure of most modern businesses.

Take online retailers as an example. They’re formed of separate services – sign-up, order processing, picking and packing, payment processing, delivery, and so on. From a business perspective, if one person tried to handle all of those things it would become slow, inefficient, and error-prone. As the numbers increase, it also becomes unscalable.

What works much better is when certain tasks are handled by Person A and others by Person B, and so on. It’s the same with microservices. Small independent tasks are handled by different services. For instance, authentication is handled by one different service, and language translations by another.

Microservices can work for web apps of all sizes. Discover how smaller dev teams can implement microservices without a container orchestration system – such as Kubernetes – in our blog on how to scale microservices.

Why not monolith?

The alternative to microservices is monolith architecture. That’s when developers build everything in a single codebase.

Think of a monolith as a single building housing everything. That works for some business models – a grocery store, for example. Different product departments can be comfortably housed under the same roof – it’s a one-stop shop.

But imagine if you tried to build a house that accommodated all of your family’s needs in one building. You’d need a living space, a workspace, a school, a hospital, a grocery store… the list goes on. It would be almost impossible. The solution? Divide the building.

When you need medical attention, you visit a doctor’s surgery or hospital rather than have those things in your own home. It’s the same for microservices. Large-scale development projects can grow too large for a single codebase. So we divide and conquer.

Discover more reasons for choosing microservices over monolith in our blog on what we’ve learned from helping clients make that journey.

Why we use Laravel PHP framework?

Laravel is a popular PHP web application framework. There are many reasons why our developers choose to work in Laravel:

How Proshore developers use Laravel

Here at Proshore, we have over 9 years of experience in working with Laravel. We’ve even established our own in-house team of Laravel experts. Here’s how we use it:

• In our case, most communication to and fro from microservices is done through API. ​​Laravel makes it much easier and faster to build Rest API.
  
  
• On the development side, the Laravel container and dependency injection make it way easier to work with repositories. We use the repository pattern for ease of switching and better coding standards.
  
  
• With huge volumes of interrelated data, relationships start to become complicated, Laravel’s ORM makes database interaction and data manipulation much more streamlined.
  
  
• We prefer to create independent features which are easier to develop and test. Laravel by itself allows us to separate features i.e. make them independent.
  
  
• Laravel has a modular structure that is well-suited to building microservices. Using a repository pattern requires a module to be independent which is well suited as Laravel has an built-in modular structure.
  
  
• Laravel is well-documented and that enables better coding standards. Any functionality added can be documented easily based on the standards stated in the documentation that includes the tests that we write or the feature that we add.

Looking for a more specific Laravel service? Proshore can help

Tell us more about your project requirements and receive customized recommendations via email or over a 15-minute consultation call.

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When to use microservices?

Microservices won’t suit every development project. A common use case is when software has a lot of separate yet related services. Imagine a scenario where you have multiple user types logging into multiple services, each with a different role and responsibilities.

Each of those services might then have language translations. Plus, each of those services might belong to a different role – some managed internally, some externally. To manage all of these things in one codebase would be quite chaotic, and disruptive to services.

Here are some other scenarios where microservices architecture might make sense:

You need scalability

Microservices enable individual services to be scaled independently, optimizing resource allocation and ensuring efficient performance based on specific service requirements.

You need agility and flexibility

Microservices architecture allows for independent development, deployment, and updates of services, providing agility and flexibility in responding to changing business needs.

You need a range of technologies

Microservices permit the use of diverse technologies for different services, allowing teams to select the most appropriate tools for each specific business function.

You need to separate out functionality

Microservices promote the segregation of functionalities, with each service focused on a specific business capability, leading to clearer architectural boundaries and easier maintenance.

You need faster testing and feedback loops

Microservices support improved testing by enabling isolated testing of individual services, facilitating quicker feedback loops, and enhancing the overall reliability of a system.

Build better microservices with Proshore

With thousands of ready-to-code developers, Proshore has the tech talent you need in multiple front-end and back-end programming languages, including Laravel.

Need an entire self-managed dedicated development team? Looking to augment your existing capabilities with highly-skilled IT professionals? Here at Proshore, we can put together the right solution for you – whether you’re working with microservices or monolith architecture.

Discover how much you could save by hiring PHP developers from Proshore without compromising on coding quality. Book a call for a free consultation with our Accounts Director and a customized proposal along with quotation.

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Mobile App Development

Streamlining Flutter iOS Deployment: A Guide to CI/CD with Azure Pipelines

In today’s fast-paced mobile app landscape, delivering high-quality software quickly is non-negotiable. For Flutter developers, Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) is a game-changer that automates builds, tests, and deployments to ensure seamless releases.

Book a call Talk to our Accounts director, Jeroen, to see if our ready-to-code offshore teams are a fit for you.

• Resources

At Proshore, a leading offshore software development firm in Nepal, we’ve seen firsthand how CI/CD transforms workflows—thanks to experts like Rajendra Shrestha, a senior Flutter developer on our team.

Rajendra recently shared his technical insights in a detailed article on Medium, breaking down how to deploy Flutter iOS apps to TestFlight using Azure Pipelines.

In this guide, we’ll expand on Rajendra’s expertise, blending his hands-on experience with Proshore’s proven strategies to help you master CI/CD—whether you’re a developer refining your craft or a business seeking scalable solutions.

Why CI/CD for Flutter?

Flutter’s cross-platform prowess is undeniable, but as Rajendra emphasizes, “even the most elegant codebase can falter without a reliable release process.” Here’s why CI/CD matters:

• Automation: Eliminate manual build/test/deploy tasks.
• Consistency: Reduce human error with standardized workflows.
• Speed: Release updates faster to stay ahead of competitors.
• Collaboration: Enable smoother teamwork with integrated feedback loops.

For businesses, CI/CD isn’t just a technical nicety—it’s a strategic advantage. Offshore teams like Proshore use these pipelines to deliver predictable, high-quality results across time zones. As Rajendra puts it, “Automation isn’t just about speed—it’s about trust. Clients know their releases will happen like clockwork.”

Azure Pipelines: A Perfect Match for Flutter

Microsoft’s Azure Pipelines offers a flexible, cloud-native solution for CI/CD. Rajendra, who has configured dozens of pipelines for Proshore clients, highlights the key benefits:

1

Cross-Platform Support

Build iOS, Android, and web apps from a single pipeline.

2

Scalability

Handle projects of any size with parallel jobs.

3

Integration

Works seamlessly with GitHub, Azure Repos, and other tools.

4

Cost-Effectiveness

Free tiers for small projects and pay-as-you-go pricing.

1

Cross-Platform Support

Build iOS, Android, and web apps from a single pipeline.

2

Scalability

Handle projects of any size with parallel jobs.

3

Integration

Works seamlessly with GitHub, Azure Repos, and other tools.

4

Cost-Effectiveness

Free tiers for small projects and pay-as-you-go pricing.

“Azure’s flexibility lets us tailor pipelines to each project’s unique needs,” Rajendra notes. At Proshore, we’ve leveraged Azure Pipelines to streamline deployments for startups and enterprises alike.

Step-by-Step: Deploying Flutter iOS Apps to TestFlight

Let’s break down how Azure pipelines work for Flutter iOS apps with insights from Rajendra’s playbook.

1️⃣ Prepare Your Environment

a

Apple Developer Account

Ensure you have an active account and App Store Connect access.

b

Code Signing

Generate an Apple Distribution Certificate and Provisioning Profile. Let’s break down how it works for Flutter iOS apps.

c

Repository Setup

Host your Flutter project on Azure Repos, GitHub, or Bitbucket.

2️⃣ Configure Azure Pipeline

a

Create an azure-pipelines.yml file

b

Define your pipeline stages

Here’s a simplified snippet:


trigger:<br> - main<br>variables:<br> - iosVmImage: 'macos-latest'<br> - flutterVersion: '3.24.0'<br> - archivepath: 'build/ios/archive/Runner.xcarchive'<br> - runnerAppPath: 'build/ios/archive/Runner.xcarchive/Products/Applications/Runner.app'<br> - builtAppPath: 'build/ios/ipa'<br> - exportPlistPath: 'exportOptions.plist'<br> - PROVISIONING_PROFILE_UUID: 'xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx'<br> - SIGNING_IDENTITY: 'Apple Distribution: account_name (team_id)'<br> - appIdentifier: 'com.xxxxxx.xxxxx'<br> - teamId: 'xxxxxxxxx'<br> - artifactName: 'release_artifact_name'<br> - appStoreServiceConnectionName: 'apple_service_connection_name'<br> - appSpecificAppleId: 'xxxxxxxxxx'<br> - buildFlavor: 'Production' #Optional<br> - entryPoint: 'lib/main_prod.dart' #Optional<br>steps:<br> - task: InstallAppleCertificate@2<br> inputs:<br> certSecureFile: 'your-certificate.p12'<br> certPwd: $(certificate_password)<br> - task: InstallAppleProvisioningProfile@1<br> displayName: Install provisioning file<br> inputs:<br> provisioningProfileLocation: 'secureFiles'<br> provProfileSecureFile: 'your-provision.mobileprovision'<br> - task: FlutterInstall@0<br> inputs:<br> mode: 'auto'<br> channel: 'stable'<br> version: 'custom'<br> customVersion: $(flutterVersion)<br> - task: FlutterCommand@0<br> displayName: 'Run Flutter diagnostics'<br> inputs:<br> projectDirectory: '.'<br> arguments: 'doctor -v'<br> - task: FlutterBuild@0<br> inputs:<br> target: 'ipa'<br> buildFlavour: $(buildFlavor)<br> entryPoint: $(entryPoint)<br> extraArgs: '--no-codesign'<br> - script: |<br> security cms -D -i ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/$(PROVISIONING_PROFILE_UUID).mobileprovision > decoded.plist<br> plutil -extract Entitlements xml1 -o Runner.entitlements decoded.plist<br> chmod +x generate_export_plist.sh<br> ./generate_export_plist.sh $(PROVISIONING_PROFILE_UUID)<br> codesign --entitlements Runner.entitlements -f -s "$(SIGNING_IDENTITY)" $(runnerAppPath)<br> xcodebuild -exportArchive -archivePath $(archivepath) -exportPath $(builtAppPath) -exportOptionsPlist $(exportPlistPath)<br> displayName: "Sign ipa"<br> - task: CopyFiles@2<br> displayName: 'Copy app to staging directory'<br> inputs:<br> sourceFolder: '$(Agent.BuildDirectory)'<br> contents: '**/ipa/*.ipa'<br> targetFolder: '$(Build.StagingDirectory)'<br> flattenFolders: true<br> - task: PublishBuildArtifacts@1<br> displayName: 'Publish IPA file'<br> inputs:<br> PathtoPublish: '$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)'<br> artifactName: $(artifactName)<br> publishLocation: 'Container'<br> - task: AppStoreRelease@1<br> inputs:<br> serviceEndpoint: 'Deheus App Store Connect Key'<br> releaseTrack: 'TestFlight'<br> appIdentifier: $(appIdentifier)<br> appType: 'iOS'<br> ipaPath: '$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)/**/*.ipa'<br> appSpecificId: $(appSpecificAppleId)<br>


3️⃣ Handle Code Signing Securely

Azure’s secure file storage and variable groups keep sensitive data (like certificates) encrypted. Rajendra’s advice: “Automate certificate installation with the <InstallAppleCertificate> task—it’s saved us hours of debugging.”

4️⃣ Deploy to TestFlight

The AppStoreRelease task uploads the .ipa file to App Store Connect. “Monitor builds in Azure’s dashboard,” Rajendra suggests. “Clients love it when they can track progress on a dashboard without touching Xcode.”

Meet the Expert

Rajendra Shrestha, Senior Flutter Developer

With over 5 years of experience in cross-platform development, Rajendra specializes in CI/CD pipelines and DevOps automation. When he’s not streamlining deployments, he mentors junior developers and writes technical guides for the Flutter community.

Want more detailed steps on deploying iOS apps?

Read Rajendra's Guide

Common Challenges & How We Solve Them

Even with automation, pitfalls can arise. Here’s how Rajendra and his team tackle them:

• Certificate Issues: “Mismatched profiles halt pipelines,” Rajendra fix, “Implement monthly audits and use Azure’s secret rotation to avoid expiry surprises.”
• Flutter Version Conflicts: “Sync pipeline and local SDKs religiously,” he advises.
• Long Build Times: Optimize with dependency caching. Rajendra’s hack: “Cache the .pub-cache folder—it cuts a client’s build time by half.”

As an offshore partner, we help clients navigate these hurdles through offshore development teams with experts like Rajendra who know the ins and outs of mobile app development and deployment.

Why Partner with an Offshore Flutter Team in Nepal?

Choosing a Nepalese offshore team like Proshore offers unique advantages:

• Cost Efficiency: High-quality output at competitive rates.
• Skilled Talent: Nepal’s growing tech ecosystem produces top-tier Flutter developers.
• Time Zone Synergy: Overlap with European and Asian markets for real-time collaboration.

Implementing CI/CD for Flutter with Azure Pipelines isn’t just about automation—it’s about building a foundation for scalable, stress-free app development. Whether you’re a solo developer looking to optimize your workflow or a business seeking a reliable offshore partner, Proshore is here to help.

Save big on development costs with our end-to-end Flutter & CI/CD solutions. Let’s build your next app!