The technology shift from Monolithic to Microservices with jamstack

Website development has been long known as based on the content management system with WordPress. With the great confidence of freedom of managing content, the flexibility of styling the design with the available templates and adding functionality by using plugins the content management system has always been a one-for-all solution where your front-end and the back-end has been built on the same platform. This traditional stack has been long known as Monolithic architecture. Have you been wondering that if everything has been so easygoing, what was the problem with this technology? And what if not a uni-platform or structure what else then?

We will be replying to all such queries today in this blog and the detail of the monolithic and microservices approaches in today’s web industry. Since we have talked about Jamstack technology earlier and how and why is it important for web development for individuals and businesses, its time to drill a little more into this modern stack web development with the actual back-end approach behind the Jamstack technology and using headless CMS and Static site generators for websites.  

Old Stack and Monolithic Way

 All of us must have heard, seen or worked on WordPress for building our very first website, with freedom of choosing a theme, managing pages, posts, content and more. If not through WordPress there must be other CMS serving us as back-end and front-end known as monolithic approach. This old stack has been using PHP, HTML and CSS for the website designing and back-end functionalities and features. That’s the very basic approach of development and programming that involves lengthy codes being written at the backend. 

Drawbacks of Monolithic approach

The monolithic approach is although a one for all approach but it was not secure since the data was exposed to SQL injections and the hacking of the data was easier. The single management i.e. design and the back-end makes the website and apps slower as it takes a longer time to load everything. Any change in the data, content or back-end may affect the front-end so you do not have a free hand in both ends. 

Web stacks are groups of technical tools that developers use for making a web application. Usually, a tech stack consists of four things i.e. the Operating System (OS), web server, DB software and the back-end and front-end programming language. The traditional website development method is very easy to build and manage.

Why Choosing Jamstack?

Choosing the stack for your development is one of the first decisions you have to make, and the right choice can save you. Before we talk about why and how Jamstack is one of the hottest stacks of 2020 and beyond, let’s take a look at the issue’s world has been facing before it ever existed;

• The slow speed of web page loading
• Insecure data and back-end
• Difficulty in adding functionality through cracked Plugins
• SEO optimization
• Frequent updates of themes and plugins

Jamstack and Microservices

Jamstack word comes from JavaScript, APIs, and Markup. It uses only JavaScript, supporting APIs, and markup, to build good websites and web applications. Jamstack is a modern architecture for building fast, secure, cost-efficient and scalable websites. By using the modern Jamstack technology we can build static pages, with more complex functionality integrated.

Jamstack represents a new way of developing software based on build-time and client-side rendering, that doesn’t depend on web servers for outputting websites and applications. Jamstack relies on modern JavaScript frameworks and static site generators to build blazing-fast websites, which makes the difference in how well Google perceives a website.

The Structural Architecture of Jamstack technology

How are both the architecture the same? Jamstack is exclusively for web development wherein the websites are being developed on isolated platforms for developing the back-end and designing the user interface.

The jamstack technology can be divided into the following services;

• Static Site Generator like Gatsby, Next etc.
• GraphQL APIs
• Headless CMS like WordPress, Contentful etc.
• Content delivery network

The Microservices structure of the Jamstack website

With the Jamstack architecture, instead of integrating microservices to a backend framework, it’s possible to integrate the services holistically.

1. The programming ecosystem provides an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) that is required to customize APIs, develop backend business logic and the frontend as well.
2. The event-based web callback is known as webhooks, primarily used to simplify real-time information delivery (always) from the server-side to the client-side. In a rudimentary sense, they can be considered as reverse APIs, that are responsible for transmitting data from the source application
3. Static websites are files that are served from a server or a content delivery network. Static websites do not render dynamically. Static means that every user gets the same files from web servers or CDNs in contrast to dynamic websites where the served files may vary on multiple different factors and serve different files for different users.
4. An API (Application Programming Interface) is a request-based, programmable intermediary that works between the server and the client-side to transmit data. In headless CMS, the API contacts the web content from the body, i.e. backend repository, and delivers it to the head, i.e. frontend presentation layer, only when a request is generated.
5. A headless Content Management System (CMS) is a content management system which does not have a front-end integration. Headless CMSs follow a decoupled architecture model. It simply means that the Content Management System offers only a back end to store and manage content, and an API to get the data you need to show in your client application.

Components structured in Gatsby

 The front-end i.e. based on the GatsbyJS React components in the account of back-end CMS i.e headless WordPress has a certain architecture and structure of components as mentioned below;

1. The parent component i.e., Layout used as the global component.
2. The views that are connected to the router are mapped directly to the template page of WordPress CMS. For Example, if the back-end has a Contact us page, the front-end will have the contact us view.
3. Another important component used across all the website pages is partials that include the data fetch.
4. Lastly, the global components are reused throughout the site.

The World reservations towards Jamstack technology

Jamstack technology is still not very common to businesses and also to many technical and non-technical people. The technical people working under a certain programming stack are still unaware of the microservices architecture for web development under Jamstack technology. Some of the reservations are;

1. Expecting non-technical content authors to write in markup is unrealistic, especially in a world where other feature-rich CMSs focus on simplifying content authoring. Content relationships are also one place where Jamstack sites are assumed to struggle, especially when it comes to relationships between pages or collections of assets.
2. When leveraging Jamstack, if you need to add shopping carts, feedback forms, or comments, you need to add additional services to your stack, which could expose your security or the stability of the site if you need to render dynamic content.
3. In almost all cases, managing content without a dedicated CMS can be hard. If you decide to upload markdown directly to your site and link images, you’ll have a hard time because you’ll have to do all the media management yourself. A headless CMS eases your load and helps you focus on what matters.

The Result of Microservice Structure

 Although it is effortless to use the traditional WordPress in the monolithic structure where the data and design are on the same platform and you can see real-time changes. But the website performance is affected greatly like speed, limitation in design and security of back-end. The microservice structure of the website makes them more dynamic, secure and fast. The website performance is much better and the modern website gets a higher google ranking by being fully SEO optimized. The Jamstack technology needs awareness and in the future, more and more people will move towards modern technology.