Many organizations are eager to adopt microservices, sometimes before they even know if they need them. Knowing when they fit a need makes all the difference, and sometimes, not using them is the smarter move.
There are some cases where a microservice architecture is your best bet:
If your project has to support multiple technologies that don’t naturally work together, microservices are a natural fit. Take my experience with the Whitelist Sync Web project:
Originally, this project ran on a 100% .NET backend with a Vue frontend. Later, I migrated to a Node backend with a React frontend. However, I still needed to support SignalR—Microsoft’s real-time communication technology—because client applications in the field were dependent on it. The challenge? SignalR server-side hosting is only supported in C#. Node cannot host a SignalR hub.
Removing SignalR from the project wasn’t an option (unless I was willing to rewrite and redeploy all the client apps—which was out of scope). The solution was to create a separate SignalR microservice: a C# project dedicated to SignalR, communicating with the Node backend through JWT auth and REST endpoints. A reverse proxy routed /hubs/ requests to the SignalR service, while all other traffic hit the React app. The entire setup was managed using Docker Compose.
Microservices can be helpful for extending existing applications. If you want to add new functionality using a different tech stack—or isolate new features for a big team—they let you do this without rewriting your monolith.
Splitting your app into smaller, independently hosted pieces means a failure in one service won’t crash the entire application. Of course, you can build robust error handling into a monolith, but microservices can make fault isolation easier.
Cloud providers offer load balancing for monoliths, but microservices can provide more granular scaling. Just keep in mind, if you don’t have heavy load or growth requirements, this might not be worth the extra complexity and cost.
Microservices let you mix and match tech: imagine a Node backend, a React frontend, and a Python microservice for AI features. Each part of your app can use the best tool for the job.
While microservices have their place, they also come with significant downsides:
Running multiple services means more infrastructure, more devops, and more cloud spend. If your application has low demand, this cost is often unjustified. Starting new projects with a single stack keeps things cheaper and simpler.
Multiple services means more to manage: logging, monitoring, orchestration (hello, Kubernetes), and maintenance. All of this adds to the operational burden.
Using cloud-specific services like Azure Functions ties your app to one provider. Migrating later is possible, but few businesses want to refactor dozens of microservices just to escape rising costs.
Deploying a monolith is straightforward. Microservices require complex CI/CD pipelines and orchestration. Tools like Fynydd fdeploy can help, but they add yet another layer of infrastructure.
With more moving parts, it’s harder to add features, fix bugs, and onboard new team members.
Microservices make authentication harder. Instead of just handling user auth, you now need to manage service-to-service authentication, which can be complicated and error-prone.
Given all these costs, it’s clear: Start simple. For most projects, especially those with low load or a single technology stack, a monolith is the best starting point. Design your application with modularity and future growth in mind, so you can break it into microservices if you ever need to. But don’t jump into microservices unless you’re solving real problems that require them.
Further reading: You Don’t Need Microservices (itnext.io)
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Modern computers, laptops, and mobile devices use solid state drive (SSD) storage, which is power efficient and fast! Since SSDs have no moving parts they're also more durable than hard disk technology in mobile scenarios.
But SSD storage does have limitations. Two primary concerns are:
Essentially, data is written to SSD storage as static charges in individual cells. These cells would normally hold a charge for a very long time, but the act of charging the cell is destructive. It takes a high voltage to weaken the cell barrier before the cell can be charged. And every time a cell is written the barrier is permanently weakened. Eventually the cell will not be able to reliably store a charge.
SSDs manage this problem in a few ways. One tactic is wear leveling, which means that data isn't generally written to the same cell. The drive writes to new cells as often as possible. This levels out the wear across all cells. Another strategy they use is to keep a bank of extra (hidden) cells available. When the SSD sees that a cell is sufficiently "bad", one of the "backup" cells will take its place. All of this happens in the background.
As cells lose their ability to hold a charge, the first symptom is a slowdown in reads. The SSD will try to read a cell, which sometimes returns a bad value (according to an ECC check), so it has to read it again, likely at a different voltage. Eventually the cell returns the correct value. But these repeated read attempts noticeably slow overall drive performance.
For computers and SSD drives that stay powered off for extended periods, you'll see advice that recommends turning on the device every so often. But all that really does is give the SSD a chance to mark bad cells, provided the device tells it to read or write to that bad cell in the first place. Some high end SSDs will perform periodic cell rewrites to refresh the data on their own, but consumer SSDs don't typically do this. To be clear: powering up an SSD does not recharge the cells or truly address these issues.
New SSDs can reliably store data for several years without power. But after actively using an SSD for months or years, it makes sense to begin periodically refreshing the cells. This not only ensures more reliable storage over time, it can also noticeably speed up SSD performance.
I ran some tests on my local workstation to verify these claims. I used a 2 year old MacBook Pro with an SSD boot drive that has remained more than half empty, ensuring lots of new cells were available for writes. It has had several OS upgrades and a couple format/rebuilds.
That Mac booted to login in 16.6 seconds. After refreshing the SSD with the same data, it booted to login in 14 seconds, which is over 15% faster. This indicates that overall performance should also improve, at least with regard to storage transfers anyway. So even on a relatively current machine there was a noticeable speed increase. As a software developer, the biggest benefit for me was the improved reliability.
So, if you want to refresh an SSD, following are some quick guides to help you through the process.
The easiest way to refresh your SSD on Windows is to use SpinRite (https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm). This is a time-tested, rock solid utility for hard disk maintenance and recovery, which can also handle SSD storage. Run this tool on level 3 to refresh all the cells and map out any bad cells. It will also work wonders on your hard disks.
Note: you need a computer with an Intel chip. SpinRite will not run on Arm.
Another way to do this without additional software is to make a system image of your drive using the poorly named "Backup and Restore (Windows 7)" control panel. This clones your entire drive (even the recovery partition) to a USB flash drive or other external media. You can then boot into recovery mode and restore the entire drive from that system image. You'll end up with the same PC with all your files intact. And you will have a backup of your drive for future use.
Both of these methods will return your SSD to like-new performance, and ensure longer data retention.
Unlike with Windows, there are no great utilities like SpinRite for modern Apple Silicon Macs. But fear not! There is a way to refresh SSD cells using the built-in Time Machine feature. And it's pretty easy to use. You will be backing up your Mac, then erasing it, reinstalling macOS, and then restoring the backup.
Connect an external storage device to your Mac and configure it in Time Machine as your backup device. Then run a backup.
Note: some applications, like Docker, do not allow Time Machine to back up their data by default. In the case of Docker there is an option to enable this.
Once you have a complete backup, restart your Mac into recovery mode. On modern Apple Silicon Macs you just shut down the computer. Then turn it back on by pressing the power button until the Mac tells you it is loading startup options.
Use Disk Utility to erase the SSD, and then choose to reinstall macOS.
After the OS is installed it will restart and run Migration Assistant.
Choose to transfer files from Time Machine, and follow the instructions. It will show you all Time Machine backups for connected drives. Choose the latest backup entry for your backup drive, and let Migration Assistant do its thing. You will be left with a refreshed SSD with all your files intact.
The research in this area is nascent, so the optimal frequency for refreshing your SSD cells really depends on how well it is performing, how many writes have been made, and how full it is on average. On my server data drive I rarely write new files. But the data is very important. So I'm planning on refreshing the cells yearly just to be safe.
So how often should you run this process? If your SSD is new or averages under 50% usage, and is under 10 years old, I would do this yearly through that period. As your SSD ages (or if you have a mostly full SSD) it may be better to run it more frequently.
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We've helped digital marketing and SEO agencies implement their strategies for years. Even when they have software development staff we've been able to augment their team and provide real value. The key takeaway is that when timelines and budgets are tight, and your development staff is booked, reduce risk and scale up quickly with a software development partner. Here are a few reasons why this makes sense.
It can be hard to resource digital marketing projects on short notice. And bringing in contractors can add significant risk; from lack of expertise to limited availability and single point of failure scenarios.
Using an experienced development partner is a better choice when time, quality, and/or risk aversion are paramount. You will have a self-managing team at your disposal. They will provide redundancy, coordinate with your project and account managers, and provide additional resources when needed.
Software development in a single vertical tends to restrict professional growth. And though teams tend to coalesce and work better together over time, their shared experience is likewise limited. It's like being a movie reviewer of science fiction who is then asked to review a documentary on the Renaissance.
When you periodically leverage a software development partner you add a diversity of experience across industries that helps you deliver better services to your clients. It also helps your team learn and grow.
When it comes to providing digital marketing services, specialization is a key asset when generalization is your model. Agencies typically offer a full-service product, and as such may even have their own software developers. This means that they have to provide the expertise for two unique businesses.
Focus typically yields better quality. That's why it can be a huge benefit to engage with a software development partner, especially on your most important projects. They provide specialized services that improve the quality of your digital tactics, as well as reduce time to market. And they're typically more experienced in working with a wide range of development platforms and services.
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There is a world full of "build your own website" services that allow just about anyone to stand up a new website in a few hours. Even organizations can leverage the simplicity offered by these services to set up an online store, community, and more. Here are a few examples of why people typically choose these services.
Sounds great! But as with everything in life, there are tradeoffs.
Regardless, these services can be a great way for individuals and small organizations to bootstrap their web presence, and in many cases, you can happily continue to use the service for years.
But there are also long-term lock-in issues that can be more serious, potentially impeding your growth, for example:
If the tradeoffs are too much to swallow, fear not! You can also go with a custom web app tailored specifically to your needs and budget. It can match your vision without compromises and scaling can be managed more easily as your business or traffic grow.
So how do you get started? With a builder service you first have to find one with the price and features you need, and then create an account and dig into their control panel to start configuring your website. Whereas for a custom website the first step is to find a web development partner you can rely on for advice and technical expertise, like Fynydd. Your partner can help gather your ideas, come up with a plan, and build your web app, all within your budget and timeline. They're usually experts in both new web app projects and migrations from other platforms and services. Most importantly, they fill the knowledge gap left by the "build your own website" service.
A web development partner will choose technologies that have a proven security track record. One way we do this is by consulting the CVE database; a publicly funded global resource for tracking common vulnerabilities and exposures. For example, a CVE search quickly reveals that WordPress has historically been a security nightmare.
Your development partner will help you with a design that matches your vision, a hosting service that meets your needs and budget, a security review, a backup plan and disaster recovery strategy, and more. When the time comes to grow your platform, they can help with that too. And throughout the journey you maintain full control over your brand, your website, your data, and your customers.
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When it comes to offshore software development teams, managing quality and risk creates value. But you also need experienced leadership and oversight for long-term success. Simply adding offshore bodies to a project rarely works, and has diminishing returns.
Here are some process tips for mitigating risk and getting the most value from an offshore team.
Some of the issues you'll encounter can be avoided by engaging with an onshore development partner. Here are some tips for keeping the app or service quality high and the risk low.
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