Microservices in Action: Will Blockchain technologies disrupt Microservices architectures?

[Bran Kop]

Will Blockchain technologies disrupt Microservices architectures?

Microservices contain the full stack, API, logic, data, etc., but with distributed blockchains or BaaS (Blockchain-as-a-Service), the full stack is almost all offloaded to (collaborating) distributed blockchains. Worldstate data are replicated on each peer node, in a separate channel of the node (like in a permissioned HLF blockchain), as well as ledgers. Server transaction management as well. Communications are handled by a powerful gRPC full duplex binary protocol. Dependencies are now between collaborating blockchains, which are resilient to failure. Hardware, communications, and internal failures are resolved. And dependencies between blockchains / channels are trivial. Microservice is now reduced to a NodeJS or Go application generated from a Smart Contract that serves as an integration layer toward Blockchain (e.g. Fabric) layer. And we are back in Layers and Tiers architectures:

Client Layer (Mobile, Desktop)

Application Layer (e.g. React App + Websub Hub messaging + Websockets)

Integration Layer (e.g. NodeJS generated from smart contract as API interface to blockchain channels)

Blockchain Layer (e.g. distributed Hyperledger Fabric or BaaS)


It seems that the field will evolve into BLOCKCHAIN MICROSERVICES where transaction management will be the task of PWA/SPA clients (GUI). The current microservices full stacks are now offloaded to Blockchain layer and Microservices are only (smart contract generated) APIs serving as an interface to Blockchains.

[Stephan van Hulst]

Absolutely not. Blockchain is a smart solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Managers have jumped on it to appear like they're looking toward the future, but in reality they know nothing about the real application of blockchains, which is actually quite limited. Most companies that advertise that they use blockchain in their products just abuse them to create a poorly performing private database.

I didn't know that "Blockchain as a Service" was an existing thing, but reading it makes my eyes roll so hard I'm afraid they're going to spin out of their sockets. Can be be done with this stupid buzzword, and have managers worry about the functional requirements of a product again, and have developers worry about the technical solutions?

[Bran Kop]

Stephan van Hulst wrote:

I didn't know that "Blockchain as a Service" was an existing thing, but reading it makes my eyes roll so hard I'm afraid they're going to spin out of their sockets. Can be be done with this stupid buzzword, and have managers worry about the functional requirements of a product again, and have developers worry about the technical solutions?

I once parked my car in a forbidden zone downtown. I respected all traffic signs, mind you, but when I came back the officer was already issuing the ticket. - But officer, I respected all traffic rules and signs, why ticket?! It's a by-law - says the officer while writing few more tickets for the cars parked behind mine. But I didn't know about by-law, officer?! You are obliged to know all by-laws - said officer and left. Then it occurred to me: there is no excuse being an ignorant fool.