In the fast-evolving technological landscape, the architecture underlying software applications plays a critical role in determining scalability, flexibility, and maintenance efficiency. Two prominent architectural styles are microservices-oriented architecture and monolithic architecture. In the context of regulatory reporting—a domain that demands agility, accuracy, and reliability—the choice of architecture becomes even more significant.
What is a Microservices-Oriented Architecture?
Microservices-oriented architecture, often simply called "microservices," is an architectural style that structures an application as a collection of loosely coupled, independently deployable services. Each service corresponds to a single business capability and runs in its own process, communicating with others typically via APIs or lightweight messaging protocols.
What is a Monolithic Architecture?
Monolithic architecture is the traditional way of building applications—a single codebase and memory space handles all functionalities. In a monolithic system, different functionalities are tightly coupled and exist under a single application layer.
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Why we selected a Microservices-Oriented architecture for Reg360:
Reg360 is built in a Microservices architecture. When designing the application - we considered the following key aspects when deciding between Microservices versus the traditional monolithic architecture used by the legacy regulatory reporting vendors:
Scalability:
Microservices: Individual components can be scaled independently based on the load or demand for that particular service. This granularity is particularly beneficial for regulatory reporting where certain processes are more resource-intensive. In particular - microservices provides the ability to scale horizontally for large data processing in a cluster architecture - allowing exceptional performance even on very large data sets.
Monolithic: The entire application must be scaled, leading to unnecessary use of resources and heightened hardware costs. Traditional reporting vendor solutions rely on a single, centralized database. As the application scales, the database becomes a bottleneck, limiting performance. Diversifying databases or transitioning to more scalable database solutions is challenging due to the tightly integrated nature of monoliths.
Agility and Speed:
Microservices: Since services are loosely coupled, changes or updates to one service won’t disrupt others. This flexibility is vital in regulatory reporting where rules can change, requiring quick system adaptations.
Monolithic: Changes often demand that the entire application be rebuilt and redeployed, making updates slower and riskier. As the codebase grows, development and deployment cycles in monolithic architectures tend to slow down. Longer deployment cycles can hinder the application's ability to adapt to changing scalability needs quickly.
Failure Isolation:
Microservices: A failure in one service doesn't affect others. This resilience ensures that a problem in one reporting component doesn't bring down the entire system.
Monolithic: An issue in one section can potentially crash the entire application, causing widespread disruptions.
Technology Diversity:
Microservices: Different services can be written in different programming languages and use different data storage technologies. This is advantageous in regulatory reporting where certain tasks benefit from specialized tools. Reg360 easily blends in with the client's preferred tech-stack.
Monolithic: Typically confined to a single technology stack, limiting flexibility.
Deployment and Continuous Delivery:
Microservices: Individual services can be deployed independently, promoting continuous integration and delivery—a boon for keeping pace with frequent regulatory changes. Reg360 is continuously updated - using a CI/CD pipeline - ensuring that our clients immediately get the benefit of product enhancements.
Monolithic: Deployment is generally more complex and time-consuming. Major releases often require special projects for traditional regulatory reporting vendors.
Maintainability:
Microservices: The modular nature makes maintenance tasks more manageable, allowing for pinpoint problem identification and resolution in the vast domain of regulatory reporting.
Monolithic: Maintenance can become challenging as the codebase grows, making bug tracking and feature addition more cumbersome.
Conclusion:
While monolithic architectures have their strengths, such as simpler initial development, scalability is not one of them. As the demands on an application increase, the challenges of scaling a monolith become pronounced, leading to performance challenges and cost blow-outs.
We decided to design Reg360 from the ground up in microservices for the inherent flexibility, scalability, and resilience, meeting the dynamic requirements of the regulatory landscape. By breaking down tasks into smaller, focused services, microservices-oriented architecture ensures that Reg360 remains agile, reliable, and efficient in the face of evolving regulatory requirements. We also often find that our choice of architecture aligns with our customer's cloud and data strategies, further amplifying the results we deliver for our clients.
Reg360 is the world’s only regulatory reporting solution that is designed from the ground up for the age of big data and cloud computing. Reg360 is disrupting the regulatory reporting landscape with a solution that meets both the business and technology requirements of the modern data-driven enterprise.
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