Architecture & ModernizationConference50min
Microservices Without the Distributed Mess
A pragmatic talk on microservices trade-offs: defining service boundaries, ownership, communication, and consistency using Domain-Driven Design. It explains common pitfalls like distributed monoliths, unclear boundaries, and fragile transactions, and offers practical heuristics for building cohesive, autonomous, understandable services.
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Steven HillaertSofico
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Thursday, October 8, 16:30-17:20
TBA 8
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Microservices are hard, that's probably the only thing we all agree on when it comes to microservices.
The promise of autonomy, scalability, and independent delivery often deliver something completely different: distributed spaghetti or lasagna. Where we have these blobs spread over the network, with synchronous call chains, unclear ownership, fragile transactions, and teams arguing where the “real” business logic should live.
This session looks at microservices from a pragmatic architecture perspective rooted in real experience. Not as a hype (anti-)pattern, but as a set of trade-offs around boundaries, ownership, communication, and consistency.
We will explore how Domain-Driven Design can help define service boundaries, but also where DDD terminology gets misused. What is a bounded context? How large should a service be? Can one microservice contain multiple APIs? When does orchestration make sense? Should we layer services?
The goal of this talk is not to sell microservices or dismiss them. The goal is to give developers and architects better mental models for designing services that are cohesive, autonomous, and understandable.
Attendees will leave with practical heuristics for spotting bad service boundaries, avoiding accidental distributed monoliths, and choosing communication patterns that fit the business problem instead of the architecture diagram.
The promise of autonomy, scalability, and independent delivery often deliver something completely different: distributed spaghetti or lasagna. Where we have these blobs spread over the network, with synchronous call chains, unclear ownership, fragile transactions, and teams arguing where the “real” business logic should live.
This session looks at microservices from a pragmatic architecture perspective rooted in real experience. Not as a hype (anti-)pattern, but as a set of trade-offs around boundaries, ownership, communication, and consistency.
We will explore how Domain-Driven Design can help define service boundaries, but also where DDD terminology gets misused. What is a bounded context? How large should a service be? Can one microservice contain multiple APIs? When does orchestration make sense? Should we layer services?
The goal of this talk is not to sell microservices or dismiss them. The goal is to give developers and architects better mental models for designing services that are cohesive, autonomous, and understandable.
Attendees will leave with practical heuristics for spotting bad service boundaries, avoiding accidental distributed monoliths, and choosing communication patterns that fit the business problem instead of the architecture diagram.
Steven Hillaert
I’m a freelance software architect and engineering leader with 20+ years of experience in building, rescuing, and scaling business-critical software platforms across consulting, product, and enterprise environments. My strength sits at the intersection of architecture, people, and delivery. I’ve led teams from a few developers to full departments, designed technical strategies, combining strategic oversight with hands-on technical leadership and worked closely with business stakeholders to align technology with real-world needs.