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The Magic of Small Things – Microservices 10 Years On
Thu, 24 April
In the early 2010s, the tech landscape was vastly different: Docker was a job title, K8S sounded like a boyband, Kafka evoked existential anxiety, and "Chaos Engineering" hadn’t even been coined. The Cloud? That was just something in the sky.
It was 2012 when Microservices first appeared on the Thoughtworks Technology Radar, and two years later, in 2014, Martin Fowler and James Lewis published the definition that shook the industry. Fast-forward 10 years, and microservices have become the predominant architectural style for building complex systems.
In this session, we will explore the incredible innovations that have shaped microservices over the last decade. Docker and Kubernetes (K8S) fulfilled the "write once, run anywhere" promise of the JVM, and operations transformed with the rise of Cloud Native, FaaS (Function as a Service), and Testing in Production—now seen as a maturity signal, not a sign of chaos.
Join James as he reflects on the original nine characteristics of microservices and the lessons learned since then. Even though Kafka may still cause some existential anxiety, microservices have proven their staying power.
Target Audience: This session is primarily aimed at Software Architects and Technical Leads, as it covers a decade of microservices evolution and the critical lessons learned in designing complex, scalable systems. Back-end Developers are the secondary audience, as they are responsible for implementing microservices and will benefit from insights into the architectural patterns and innovations that have shaped the microservices landscape.
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About the speaker
James Lewis
Software Architect and Director, ThoughtWorks
James Lewis is a programmer and Distinguished Engineer at Thoughtworks based in the UK. He’s proud to have been a part of Thoughtworks’ journey for nineteen years and of its ongoing mission to deliver technical excellence for its clients and in amplifying positive social change for an equitable future. As a member of the Thoughtworks Technical Advisory Board, the group that creates the Technology Radar, he contributes to industry adoption of open source and other tools, techniques, platforms and languages.
James defined the new Microservices architectural style back in 2014 along with Martin Fowler. James’ primary consulting focus these days is on helping organisations to align Technology Strategy with their organisational structures to improve their ability to get stuff done.
He is an internationally recognised expert on software architecture and design and on its intersection with organisational design and lean product development. As such he’s been a guest editor for IEEE Software, written articles, delivered training and spoken at more conferences than he can remember.
