Modernizing Legacy Systems with Spring Modulith: A Pre-Step to Microservices

Transitioning a legacy monolithic application to a microservices architecture is a daunting task. Legacy systems often lack clear boundaries between business domains, making it challenging to decompose them into microservices. To simplify this journey, Spring Modulith offers an intermediate step by enabling teams to refactor their monolith into a modular monolith before transitioning to microservices.

In this article, we’ll explore how to use Spring Modulith as a strategic tool for modernizing legacy systems and preparing them for microservices.

Challenges of Transitioning Legacy Systems to Microservices

Migrating directly from a legacy monolith to microservices introduces significant challenges:

1. Tightly Coupled Code: Legacy systems often have highly interdependent components.
2. Unclear Domain Boundaries: Business logic is scattered across multiple layers, making it difficult to identify microservices.
3. Risk of Downtime: Changes can disrupt existing functionality.
4. Operational Overhead: Setting up microservices requires additional infrastructure and expertise.