A microservice based reference architecture model in the context of enterprise architecture

In the service oriented, customer experience centric and customer changing demand driven market environment, ICT is becoming the leading enabler and partner of the modern enterprise business. More and more companies are transformed into more or pure digital style and virtual organized enterprises that are enabled and supported by a group of business oriented and microservice based applications and modules that are new to most of the companies and enterprises, both business and technical solution staff. This paper presents a microservice based reference architecture model with clear understanding and definition of the concept of microservice and key architectural components and building blocks for implementing and managing enterprise microservices in the context of enterprise architecture. This reference architecture model can be used as the pragmatic guidance for both business and IT professionals when they develop the enterprise IT transformation architecture solutions so that the API and microservice relevant technologies could be used properly at enterprise level without confusion. This paper also highlights a set of key architectural issues and provides corresponding recommendations when APIs and microsevices are leveraged within a company at enterprise level.