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Understanding the Issues, Their Causes and Solutions in Microservices Systems: An Empirical Study

Muhammad Waseem, Peng Liang, Aakash Ahmad, Arif Ali Khan, Mojtaba Shahin, Pekka Abrahamsson, Ali Rezaei Nasab, Tommi Mikkonen

TL;DR

This study conducts a mixed-methods empirical study that collected data from 2,641 issues from the issue tracking systems of 15 open-source microservices systems, and found 177 types of solutions that can be applied to fix the identified issues.

Abstract

Many small to large organizations have adopted the Microservices Architecture (MSA) style to develop and deliver their core businesses. Despite the popularity of MSA in the software industry, there is a limited evidence-based and thorough understanding of the types of issues (e.g., errors, faults, failures, and bugs) that microservices system developers experience, the causes of the issues, and the solutions as potential fixing strategies to address the issues. To ameliorate this gap, we conducted a mixed-methods empirical study that collected data from 2,641 issues from the issue tracking systems of 15 open-source microservices systems on GitHub, 15 interviews, and an online survey completed by 150 practitioners from 42 countries across 6 continents. Our analysis led to comprehensive taxonomies for the issues, causes, and solutions. The findings of this study informthat Technical Debt, Continuous Integration and Delivery, Exception Handling, Service Execution and Communication, and Security are the most dominant issues in microservices systems. Furthermore, General Programming Errors, Missing Features and Artifacts, and Invalid Configuration and Communication are the main causes behind the issues. Finally, we found 177 types of solutions that can be applied to fix the identified issues. Based on our study results, we propose a future research framework that outlines key problem dimensions and actionable study strategies to support the engineering of emergent and next-generation microservices systems.

Understanding the Issues, Their Causes and Solutions in Microservices Systems: An Empirical Study

TL;DR

This study conducts a mixed-methods empirical study that collected data from 2,641 issues from the issue tracking systems of 15 open-source microservices systems, and found 177 types of solutions that can be applied to fix the identified issues.

Abstract

Many small to large organizations have adopted the Microservices Architecture (MSA) style to develop and deliver their core businesses. Despite the popularity of MSA in the software industry, there is a limited evidence-based and thorough understanding of the types of issues (e.g., errors, faults, failures, and bugs) that microservices system developers experience, the causes of the issues, and the solutions as potential fixing strategies to address the issues. To ameliorate this gap, we conducted a mixed-methods empirical study that collected data from 2,641 issues from the issue tracking systems of 15 open-source microservices systems on GitHub, 15 interviews, and an online survey completed by 150 practitioners from 42 countries across 6 continents. Our analysis led to comprehensive taxonomies for the issues, causes, and solutions. The findings of this study informthat Technical Debt, Continuous Integration and Delivery, Exception Handling, Service Execution and Communication, and Security are the most dominant issues in microservices systems. Furthermore, General Programming Errors, Missing Features and Artifacts, and Invalid Configuration and Communication are the main causes behind the issues. Finally, we found 177 types of solutions that can be applied to fix the identified issues. Based on our study results, we propose a future research framework that outlines key problem dimensions and actionable study strategies to support the engineering of emergent and next-generation microservices systems.
Paper Structure (41 sections, 5 figures, 8 tables)

This paper contains 41 sections, 5 figures, 8 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Methodology
  3. Research Questions
  4. Phase 1 - Mining Developer Discussions
  5. Step A – Identify & Select MSA-based OSS Projects
  6. Step B – Synthesize Issues, Causes, and Solutions
  7. Phase 2 - Conducting Practitioner Interviews
  8. Preparing a Protocol
  9. Conducting Interviews
  10. Data Analysis
  11. Phase 3 - Conducting a Survey
  12. Recruitment of Participants and Conducting the Pilot Survey
  13. Conducting the Web-based Survey
  14. Data Analysis
  15. Results
  16. ...and 26 more sections

Figures (5)

  • Figure 1: An example of the issue, cause, and their solution
  • Figure 2: An overview of the research method
  • Figure 3: Overview of the demographics of survey participants
  • Figure 4: A taxonomy of issues in microservices systems
  • Figure 5: Mapping between issues, causes, and solutions in microservices systems