8 Best Books on Building Microservices in 2024
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Microservices are small, autonomous services that work together and structure an application as a collection of loosely coupled services.
Microservices architecture provides a modern way of building highly scalable applications. It enables the rapid, frequent, and reliable delivery of large, complex applications. It also enables an organization to evolve its technology stack.
If you want to learn about Microservices in-depth and are looking for the best Microservices books then you have come to the right place.
Why learn Microservices?
We are going to give you some reasons why you should learn Microservices.
Easy to build and maintain applications: Microservices resolves organizational based issues, making it easy to debug and test applications.
High-paying jobs: Senior Software Engineers can grab excellent high-paying jobs for Microservices. Not only at an individual level, but, many hyper-growth companies such as Netflix, eBay, PayPal, Twitter, Amazon use microservices in their structure.
Flexibility: A microservices architecture encourages to use of the most appropriate technology for the specific needs of the service. Each service has the freedom to use its own language, framework, or ancillary services.
Provides granular scaling: If you talk about scalability, then microservices outperform many other architectural choices out there. You can scale up a single function or service without having to scale the entire application.
Reduced risk: Each service is a separate entity in the microservices framework, and this allows localized changes, higher confidence in the quality, and end-to-end regression scenarios. So, even if one service or component of the application is down, then, the complete application doesn’t go down.
What Makes Best Microservices Books?
Depending upon the reader’s background, book’s style, and content coverage, different books will resonate with different people. Here are our criteria for the selection of the books:
Use clear, precise, and easy-to-understand language
Thoroughly teach and explain the basic concepts of microservices
Contain exercises, examples, and practice problems for hands-on experience
Enable to hold the attention of readers
Well-structured and friendly toward self-taught programmers
Best Books on Microservices
There are many books around building Microservices but here is a list of major ones that every developer should read.
1. Best book for microservice practitioners: Building Microservices: Designing Fine-Grained Systems
Building Microservices: Designing Fine-Grained Systems by Sam Newman gives a broad overview of all aspects related to microservices. The book dives into the latest solutions for modeling, integrating, testing, deploying, and monitoring your own autonomous services.
After reading the book, you'll be able to
Get new information on user interfaces, container orchestration, and serverless
Align system design with your organization's goals
Explore options for integrating a service with your system
Understand how to independently deploy microservices
Examine the complexities of testing and monitoring distributed services
Manage security with expanded content around user-to-service and service-to-service models
The book is divided into sixteen chapters and includes the following topics:
Part I: Foundation
Chapter 1 gives the introduction of Microservices
Chapter 2 talks about how to model Microservices
Chapter 3 talks about splitting the Monolith
Chapter 4 covers Microservice communication styles
Part II: Implementation
Chapter 5 talks about Implementing Microservice Communication
Chapter 6 covers Workflow
Chapter 7 talks about Build
Chapter 8 talks about Deployment
Chapter 9 is about Testing
Chapter 10 talks about Monitoring to Observability
Chapter 11 is on Security
Chapter 12 covers Resiliency
Chapter 13 is on Scaling
Part III: People
Chapter 14 covers user interfaces
Chapter 15 covers organizational structures
Chapter 16 covers the evolutionary architect
You’ll follow a fictional company throughout the book to learn how building a microservice architecture affects a single domain. The writing is elegant, clear and explained in a surprisingly simple way. This is a must-read book for anyone who wants to be engaged in Microservices.
2. Best book for Java developers: Building Microservices with Micronaut
Building Microservices with Micronaut is a September 2021 book by Nirmal Singh and Zack Dawood that helps developers build modular, high-performing, and reactive microservice-based apps using the Micronaut framework. After reading the book, you'll be able to:
Understand why the Micronaut framework is best suited for building microservices
Build web endpoints and services in the Micronaut framework
Safeguard microservices using Session, JWT, and OAuth in Micronaut projects
Get to grips with event-driven architecture in Micronaut applications
Discover how to automate testing at various levels using built-in tools and testing frameworks
Deploy your microservices to containers and cloud platforms
Become well-versed with distributed logging, tracing, and monitoring in Micronaut projects
Get hands-on with the IoT using Alexa and the Micronaut framework
The book is divided into eleven chapters and includes the following topics:
Chapter 1 helps you to get started with microservices using the Micronauts framework
Chapter 2 talks about working on data access
Chapter 3 talks about working on the RESTful web services
Chapter 4 talks about securing the Microservices
Chapter 5 talks about integrating microservices using the event-driven architecture
Chapter 6 talks about testing the microservices
Chapter 7 talks about handling microservice concerns
Chapter 8 talks about deploying microservices
Chapter 9 covers distributed logging, tracing, and monitoring
Chapter 10 covers IoT with Micronaut
Chapter 11 talks about building enterprise-grade microservices
By the end of this book, you'll be able to build, test, deploy, and maintain your own microservice apps using the framework. Intermediate-level knowledge of Java programming and implementing web services development in Java is required.
3. Best book for visual learners: Microservices Patterns: With examples in Java
Microservices Patterns by Chris Richardson teaches how to develop and deploy reliable production-quality microservices-based applications, with worked examples in Java. The author uses a pragmatic approach to the benefits and drawbacks of microservices architecture.
Here's what you'll learn from the book:
How to use microservices architecture
Service decomposition strategies
Transaction management and querying patterns
Effective testing strategies
Deployment patterns
The book features 44 design patterns for building and deploying microservices applications. Patterns are presented both visually and in Java code. The sample application is not a collection of random examples but a full-size, mini microservice web application. The topics are divided into thirteen chapters:
Chapter 1 talks about escaping monolithic hell
Chapter 2 covers Decomposition strategies
Chapter 3 covers Interprocess communication in a microservice architecture
Chapter 4 talks about managing transactions with sagas
Chapter 5 talks about designing business logic in a microservice architecture
Chapter 6 talks about developing business logic with event sourcing
Chapter 7 talks about implementing queries in a microservice architecture
Chapter 8 covers External API patterns
Chapter 9 talks about Testing microservices
Chapter 10 continues with the Testing microservices
Chapter 11 talks about developing production-ready services
Chapter 12 talks about deploying microservices
Chapter 13 talks about refactoring to microservices
The book is well structured and easy to read. It's a great book to understand the fundamentals of microservices. Readers should be familiar with the basics of enterprise application architecture, design, and implementation.
4. Best book for completionists: Building Microservices with ASP.NET Core: Develop, Test, and Deploy Cross-Platform Services in the Cloud
Building Microservices with ASP.NET Core by Kevin Hoffman shows you how to create, test, compile, and deploy microservices, using the ASP.NET Core free and open-source framework.
In this book, you’ll start with the basic building blocks of any service, and then learn how to turn them into more powerful and robust services. Here's what you'll get from the book:
Learn test-driven and API-first development concepts
Communicate with other services by creating and consuming backing services such as databases and queues
Build a microservice that depends on an external data source
Learn about event sourcing, the event-centric approach to persistence
Use ASP.NET Core to build web applications designed to thrive in the cloud
Build a service that consumes, or is consumed by, other services
Create services and applications that accept external configuration
Explore ways to secure ASP.NET Core microservices and applications
The book is divided into twelve chapters and includes the following topics:
Chapter 1 covers ASP.NET Core Primer
Chapter 2 talks about building Services with Wercker and continuous integration with CircleCI
Chapter 3 talks about building a Microservice with ASP.NET Core
Chapter 4 talks about Backing Services
Chapter 5 talks about creating a Data Service
Chapter 6 covers Event Sourcing and CQRS
Chapter 7 talks about Building an ASP.NET Core Web Application
Chapter 8 covers Service Discovery
Chapter 9 talks about Configuring Microservice Ecosystems
Chapter 10 talks about securing Applications and Microservices
Chapter 11 talks about building Real-Time Apps and Services
Chapter 12 concludes the book by putting it all together
Along the way, you’ll pick up good, practical habits for building powerful and robust services.
5. Best Books for Analytical Thinkers: Microservice APIs: Using Python, Flask, FastAPI, OpenAPI and more
Microservice APIs by Jose Haro Peralta teaches you the patterns, protocols, and strategies you need to design, build, and deploy effective REST and GraphQL microservices APIs. The book has an easy to follow writing style and is written in a framework-agnostic manner with Python-based examples. Its universal principles can easily be applied to your favorite stack and toolset.
The book gives practical techniques for designing robust microservices with APIs that are easy to understand, consume, and maintain. Here is what you’ll learn from the book:
Service decomposition strategies for microservices
Documentation-driven development for APIs
Best practices for designing REST and GraphQL APIs
Documenting REST APIs with the OpenAPI specification (formerly Swagger)
Documenting GraphQL APIs using the Schema Definition Language
Building microservices APIs with Flask, FastAPI, Ariadne, and other frameworks
Service implementation patterns for loosely coupled services
Property-based testing to validate your APIs, and using automated API testing frameworks like schemathesis and Dredd
Adding authentication and authorization to your microservice APIs using OAuth and OpenID Connect (OIDC)
Deploying and operating microservices in AWS with Docker and Kubernetes
The book is divided into four sections and 14 chapters.
Part 1 is about introducing Microservice APIs
Chapter 1 gives an introduction to microservice APIs
Chapter 2 covers a basic API implementation
Chapter 3 talks about Designing microservices
Part 2 talks about designing and building REST APIs with Python
Chapter 4 covers Principles of REST API design
Chapter 5 talks about Documenting REST APIs with OpenAPI
Chapter 6 talks about Building REST APIs with Python
Chapter 7 covers Service implementation patterns for microservices
Part 3 covers designng and building GraphQL APIs
Chapter 8 talks about Designing GraphQL APIs
Chapter 9 talks about Consuming GraphQL APIs
Chapter 10 teaches how to build GraphQL APIs with Python
Part 4 talks about securing, testing, and deploying Microservice APIs
Chapter 11 covers API authorization and authentication
Chapter 12 covers Testing and validating APIs
Chapter 13 talks about Dockerizing microservice APIs
Chapter 14 talks about Deploying microservice APIs with Kubernetes
This practical guide addresses all aspects of building microservice APIs. It is for developers familiar with the basics of web development.
6. Best book for serious learners: Building Event-Driven Microservices: Leveraging Organizational Data at Scale
Building Event-Driven Microservices by Adam Bellemare teaches how to leverage large-scale data usage across the business units in your organization using the principles of event-driven microservices.
The book takes you through the process of building an event-driven microservice-powered organization.
Here's what you'll learn from the book:
How to leverage event-driven architectures to deliver exceptional business value
The role of microservices in supporting event-driven designs
Architectural patterns to ensure success both within and between teams in your organization
Application patterns for developing powerful event-driven microservices
Components and tooling required to get your microservice ecosystem off the ground
There are seventeen chapters in the book and includes the following contents:
Chapter 1 gives you an introduction to Event-Driven Microservices
Chapter 2 covers Event-Driven Microservice Fundamentals
Chapter 3 covers Communication and Data Contracts
Chapter 4 talks about integrating Event-Driven Architectures with Existing Systems
Chapter 5 covers Event-Driven Processing Basics
Chapter 6 talks about Deterministic Stream Processing
Chapter 7 covers Stateful Streaming
Chapter 8 talks about building workflows with Microservices
Chapter 9 covers Microservices Using Function-as-a-Service
Chapter 10 covers Basic Producer and Consumer Microservices
Chapter 11 covers Heavyweight Framework Microservices
Chapter 12 covers Lightweight Framework Microservices
Chapter 13 talks about integrating Event-Driven and Request-Response Microservices
Chapter 14 covers Supportive Tooling
Chapter 15 talks about Testing Event-Driven Microservices
Chapter 16 talks about deploying Event-Driven Microservices
Chapter 17 is the conclusion of the topics
The book is recommended for anyone dealing with big data.
7. Best Book for Microservices Implementers: Microservices: Up and Running
Microservices: Up and Running by Ronnie Mitra, Irakli Nadareishvili provide step-by-step guidance for building an effective microservices architecture. The book offers a practical, prescriptive model that spans team design, domain design, infrastructure, engineering, and release.
It gives you a unified view of a microservices implementation and a strong first step in your journey to adoption. Here is what you’ll learn from the book:
Learn an effective and explicit end-to-end microservices system design
Define teams, their responsibilities, and guidelines for working together
Understand how to slice a big application into a collection of microservices
Examine how to isolate and embed data into corresponding microservices
Build a simple yet powerful CI/CD pipeline for infrastructure changes
Write code for sample microservices
Deploy a working microservices application on Amazon Web Services
The book is divided into 12 chapters and include the following topics:
aChapter 1 talks about Microservices Architecture
Chapter 2 talks about designing a Microservices Operating Model
Chapter 3 covers the SEEDS Process
Chapter 4 talks about finding Service Boundaries
Chapter 5 talks about dealing with the Data
Chapter 6 talks about building an Infrastructure Pipeline
Chapter 7 talks about building a Microservices Infrastructure
Chapter 8 covers the Developer Workspace
Chapter 9 talks about Developing Microservices
Chapter 10 talks about releasing Microservices
Chapter 11 talks about Managing Change
Chapter 12 talks about Complexity and Simplification Using Microservices
The focus of the book is on practical design and engineering. If you are an architect or engineer tasked with building microservices or a microservices architecture, this is the book for you. It is also a useful guide for readers who simply want to get “up close and personal” with a microservices implementation.
8. Best Book for Hands-on Learners: Microservices with Spring Boot 3 and Spring Cloud - Third Edition
Microservices with Spring Boot 3 and Spring Cloud by by Magnus Larsson guides you to create and deploy production-grade microservices-based applications using Spring Cloud, Istio, and Kubernetes. You'll begin with simple microservices and progress to complex distributed applications.
Beyond being a proficient coding manual, it equips you with all the basic information to adopt every presented tool. This book covers Java 17, Spring Boot 3, and Spring Cloud 2022.
The code is hosted on GitHub, has been updated recently, and is easy to follow along with. To get started, you need some prior experience in building apps with Java or Spring Boot. After reading the book, you’ll be able to:
Build reactive microservices using Spring Boot
Develop resilient and scalable microservices using Spring Cloud
Use OAuth 2.1/OIDC and Spring Security to protect public APIs
Implement Docker to bridge the gap between development, testing, and production
Deploy and manage microservices with Kubernetes
Apply Istio for improved security, observability, and traffic management
Write and run automated microservice tests with JUnit, test containers, Gradle, and bash
Use Spring AOT and GraalVM to native compile the microservices
Use Micrometer Tracing for distributed tracing
The book is written in an easy-to-understand style with step-by-step tutorials. It is an invaluable asset for mastering Spring-based microservices. This book is a must-read for developers and architects.
More ways to learn Microservices
We hope our book curation will help you to pick the right book to learn Microservices. When it comes to Microservices, there are some awesome online resources as well.
Udemy:
Introduction to Microservices is a beginner’s guide to understand Microservices.
Microservices Architecture and Implementation on .NET 5 helps you in building Microservices on .Net which used Asp.Net Web API, Docker, RabbitMQ, Ocelot API Gateway, MongoDB, Redis, SqlServer.
Coursera: Building Scalable Java Microservices with Spring Boot and Spring Cloud. In this course, you will learn how to build Java applications using Spring Boot and Spring Cloud on Google Cloud.
We also suggest over 70 coding resources that are free online.
That wraps our article about some of the best books to learn Microservices. It is hard to say which is the best book as it depends upon your background and choice. With the great selection of Microservices books and courses, the learning opportunities are endless.