Mike Attara

Microservices promise scalability and speed, but in practice, many teams end up with something worse: distributed complexity, fragile systems, and constant firefighting.

Instead of clean boundaries, they get tightly coupled services.

Instead of independence, they get cascading failures.

Instead of speed, they get coordination overhead.

This talk is a reality check.

We’ll explore how microservices fail in real-world systems and why most issues are architectural rather than technological.

Through practical examples, we’ll break down:

- The “shared database” anti-pattern

- Over-fragmented services and weak boundaries

- Excessive inter-service communication

- Hidden coupling in APIs and workflows

Then we’ll focus on how to fix it

- Designing proper service boundaries (using domain-driven principles)

- When to stay monolithic

- How to evolve systems safely

- Reducing complexity without losing flexibility

This is a pragmatic guide to building systems that actually work, not just look good on diagrams.