In 2014, Martin Fowler and James Lewis put together a blog called "Microservices" after having concerns about the loose use of the term. I was working with ThoughtWorks at the time and, being a massive fan of Martin Fowler, I would always read his work. Although a decade has passed since then, and despite the clarity provided by his work and the community, the term 'Microservices' is still used loosely. There are definitely firms pioneering this architectural style, but many more are just following the trend for the sake of the name.

Ever since the term SOA was coined in 1996, there has been a lot of ambiguity surrounding it. In this blog, I am attempting to take a step back and explain what service-oriented architectures are and where microservices fit in. We will start by exploring SOAs themselves. Then I will move on to discuss the architectural styles sliced by sizes and finally examine the various implementation approaches based on functionalities. None of what I propose is new knowledge, it is an attempt to bring it all on a single page with the intent to form a reference for technical decision-making in organisations and teams.