Microservice-Aware Static Analysis: Opportunities, Gaps, and Advancements

Microservice architecture is the mainstream to fuel cloud-native systems with small service sets developed and deployed independently. The independent nature of this modular architecture also leads to challenges and gaps practitioners did not face in system monoliths. One of the major challenges with decentralization and its independent microservices that are managed by separate teams is that the evolving system architecture easily deviates far from the original plans, and it becomes difficult to maintain. Literature often refers to this process as system architecture degradation. Especially in the context of microservices, available tools are limited. This article challenges the audience on how static analysis could contribute to microservice system development and management, particularly managing architectural degradation. It elaborates on challenges and needed changes in the traditional code analysis to better fit these systems. Consequently, it discusses implications for practitioners once robust static analysis tools become available.