Microarc: Event Driven Analysis and Design Method for Microservices

Abstract

The rapid development of the Internet infrastructure has enabled software applications to leverage almost unlimited and scalable resources. Microservice-based architecture has emerged as a solution to harness the benefits of a distributed cloud-based infrastructure. Event-driven architecture is a powerful approach for addressing challenges in distributed systems, such as scalability, distributed data, and sharing of data at scale. In an event-driven microservice architecture, decoupled services interact by responding to events and event streams facilitate data sharing between them. Despite these advantages, there is no de facto method for the analysis and design of systems within microservice architecture. Organizations often face difficulties in developing microservice-based systems, owing to the lack of well-defined methodologies for analysis and design. In this study, we present an analysis and design method for microservice-based systems. MicroArc is a method for analyzing and designing microservice-based systems, and comprises modeling notations, guiding processes to articulate how the method is applied, and a supporting tool for modelling. The MicroArc approach enables the identification of events and microservice candidates by modeling the flow of processes in the early phase of development. © 2025 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.