Background:

Using a microservices architecture is a popular strategy for software organizations to deliver value to their customers fast and continuously. However, scientific knowledge on how to manage architectural debt in microservices is scarce.

Objectives:

In the context of microservices applications, this paper aims to identify architectural technical debts (ATDs), their costs, and their most common solutions.

Method:

We conducted an exploratory multiple case study by conducting 25 interviews with practitioners working with microservices in seven large companies.

Results:

We found 16 ATD issues, their negative impact (interest), and common solutions to repay each debt together with the related costs (principal). Two examples of critical ATD issues found were the use of shared databases that, if not properly planned, leads to potential breaks on services every time the database schema changes and bad API designs, which leads to coupling among teams. We identified ATDs occurring in different domains and stages of development and created a map of the relationships among those debts.

Conclusion:

The findings may guide organizations in developing microservices systems that better manage and avoid architectural debts.

中文翻译：

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识别微服务中的架构技术债务，本金和兴趣：多案例研究

背景：

对于软件组织而言，使用微服务架构是一种流行的策略，可以快速，连续地为客户提供价值。但是，缺乏有关如何管理微服务中的架构债务的科学知识。

目标：

在微服务应用程序的上下文中，本文旨在确定体系结构技术债务（ATD），其成本以及最常见的解决方案。

方法：

我们通过对7家大公司中从事微服务的从业人员进行了25次访谈，进行了探索性的多案例研究。

结果：

我们发现了16个ATD问题，它们的负面影响（利息）以及偿还每笔债务以及相关成本（本金）的通用解决方案。发现的两个关键ATD问题示例是使用共享数据库，如果规划不当，则每次数据库架构更改和API设计不正确时，都可能导致服务中断，从而导致团队之间的耦合。我们确定了发生在不同领域和发展阶段的ATD，并绘制了这些债务之间关系的地图。

结论：

这些发现可能会指导组织开发更好地管理和避免体系结构债务的微服务系统。