| Pattern | Reliability | Security | Cost Optimization | Operational Excellence | Performance Efficiency |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Ambassador Create helper services that send network requests on behalf of a consumer service or application. Tradeoffs: Adds proxy layer with latency overhead. Tradeoff: Standardizes cross-cutting concerns (security, monitoring, retries) but introduces additional processing and deployment complexity. | |||||
| 2. Anti-Corruption Layer Implement a façade or adapter layer between a modern application and a legacy system. Tradeoffs: Adds latency and must be managed separately. Tradeoff: Isolates legacy system complexity and prevents design corruption but adds service overhead and increases management requirements. | |||||
| 3. Asynchronous Request-Reply Decouple backend processing from front-end to enable asynchronous processing. Tradeoffs: Improves client responsiveness and backend decoupling. Tradeoff: Requires reliable message handling, caller must poll/wait for results, and adds overall latency to complete operations. | |||||
| 4. Backends for Frontends Create separate backend services for each frontend client type to tailor APIs for specific needs. Tradeoffs: Optimizes per-client experiences and reduces API surface area. Tradeoff: Multiple services increase operational overhead, introduce latency from extra network hops, may cause code duplication, and increase management complexity. | |||||
| 5. Bulkhead Isolate resources to prevent failures in one component from cascading to others. Tradeoffs: Isolates failures and enables independent scaling. Tradeoff: May underutilize resources in isolated partitions, increases complexity in partitioning strategy, and adds overhead per partition. | |||||
| 6. Cache-Aside Load data into cache only on demand, keeping the cache and database in sync. Tradeoffs: Improves read performance for frequently accessed data. Tradeoff: Application must manage cache expiration and invalidation, complexity in maintaining consistency, cache misses still require database hits, and potential for stale data. | |||||
| 7. Choreography Decentralize control for event-driven systems, services respond to events rather than centralized orchestration. Tradeoffs: Removes central bottleneck and enables independent service updates. Tradeoff: Complex failure handling, difficult to trace execution flow with distributed tracing, harder to manage sequencing, and increased point-to-point communication. | |||||
| 8. Circuit Breaker Detect failures and encapsulate the logic of preventing a failure from constantly recurring. Tradeoffs: Prevents cascading failures and rapid failure detection. Tradeoff: Requires monitoring and threshold configuration, complex exception handling, monitoring overhead, waiting for circuit reset may introduce delays, and needs appropriate timeout tuning. | |||||
| 9. Claim Check Store large messages externally and pass only a reference in the message pipeline. Tradeoffs: Reduces message size, adds external storage dependency. | |||||
| 10. Compensating Transaction Use a compensation action to undo a previous transaction in a distributed system. Tradeoffs: Ensures eventual consistency in distributed transactions. Tradeoff: Adds complexity to design compensation logic, introduces latency from multi-step processes, compensation itself can fail, and difficulty tracking distributed state. | |||||
| 11. Competing Consumers Multiple consumers read from the same queue to improve scalability and performance. Tradeoffs: Enables parallel processing, but can introduce contention and complexity. | |||||
| 12. Compute Resource Consolidation Reduce the number of instances and resources by consolidating workloads on fewer machines. Tradeoffs: Saves cost but may create performance bottlenecks. | |||||
| 13. CQRS Separate read and write operations to optimize performance, scalability, and security. Tradeoffs: Improves scalability but adds operational complexity. | |||||
| 14. Deployment Stamps Deploy multiple identical environments to isolate workloads and reduce risk. Tradeoffs: Improves isolation and reliability but increases deployment and infrastructure cost. | |||||
| 15. Edge Workload Configuration Deploy workloads closer to the edge to reduce latency and improve responsiveness. Tradeoffs: Reduces latency but may complicate management and monitoring. | |||||
| 16. Event Sourcing Store all changes to an application state as a sequence of events. Tradeoffs: Enables auditability and temporal queries but increases storage and processing complexity. | |||||
| 17. External Configuration Store Keep configuration separate from code and deploy it externally. Tradeoffs: Centralizes configuration management but introduces dependency on external service. | |||||
| 18. Federated Identity Enable single sign-on and identity federation across multiple systems. Tradeoffs: Improves security and user experience but adds identity management complexity. | |||||
| 19. Gatekeeper Acts as a façade/gateway to validate and sanitize external requests before they reach internal services. Tradeoffs: Centralizes security checks but can become a bottleneck if misconfigured. | |||||
| 20. Gateway Aggregation Combine multiple backend services into a single endpoint to simplify client calls. Tradeoffs: Simplifies client integration but adds gateway processing overhead. | |||||
| 21. Gateway Offloading Offload cross-cutting concerns (like SSL termination) to a gateway service. Tradeoffs: Reduces backend load but adds gateway dependency. | |||||
| 22. Gateway Routing Route client requests to appropriate backend services via a gateway. Tradeoffs: Centralizes routing but may increase latency and dependency on gateway. | |||||
| 23. Geode Segment the network or application into zones for isolation and performance. Tradeoffs: Improves isolation but adds deployment complexity. | |||||
| 24. Health Endpoint Monitoring Expose application health via a dedicated endpoint to allow monitoring. Tradeoffs: Enables observability but adds maintenance overhead. | |||||
| 25. Index Table Maintain an index table to improve query performance and scalability. Tradeoffs: Improves query efficiency but requires additional storage and update logic. | |||||
| 26. Leader Election Select a leader among distributed components to coordinate actions and avoid conflicts. Tradeoffs: Ensures coordinated behavior but adds leader selection complexity. | |||||
| 27. Materialized View Precompute and store query results to improve read performance. Tradeoffs: Faster reads but increases storage and maintenance complexity. | |||||
| 28. Messaging Bridge Translate messages between different messaging systems. Tradeoffs: Enables interoperability but adds latency and complexity. | |||||
| 29. Pipes and Filters Break a task into a series of processing steps connected by channels. Tradeoffs: Improves modularity but adds latency due to multiple processing steps. | |||||
| 30. Priority Queue Process messages based on priority levels to improve responsiveness for important tasks. Tradeoffs: Prioritizes critical tasks but may delay lower-priority messages. | |||||
| 31. Publisher/Subscriber Decouple producers and consumers using a message broker for event distribution. Tradeoffs: Improves scalability but increases operational complexity. | |||||
| 32. Quarantine Isolate problematic data or processes to prevent affecting the main workflow. Tradeoffs: Protects system integrity but adds operational overhead. | |||||
| 33. Queue-Based Load Leveling Use queues to smooth out bursts in workload and prevent backend overload. Tradeoffs: Reduces backend stress but may increase latency for individual requests. | |||||
| 34. Rate Limiting Limit the number of requests or actions to protect system resources. Tradeoffs: Protects resources but may deny legitimate requests during spikes. | |||||
| 35. Retry Automatically retry failed operations to handle transient faults. Tradeoffs: Improves reliability but can increase load if misconfigured. | |||||
| 36. Saga Manage long-running transactions in distributed systems with compensating actions. Tradeoffs: Ensures consistency but adds operational complexity and latency. | |||||
| 37. Scheduler Agent Supervisor Coordinate scheduled tasks and supervise their execution to ensure reliability. Tradeoffs: Improves reliability but increases orchestration complexity. | |||||
| 38. Sequential Convoy Prevent head-of-line blocking by processing requests sequentially when needed. Tradeoffs: Prevents deadlocks but reduces throughput. | |||||
| 39. Sharding Partition data across multiple databases to scale out workloads. Tradeoffs: Improves scalability but adds operational and query complexity. | |||||
| 40. Sidecar Deploy helper services alongside main services to provide additional capabilities. Tradeoffs: Adds modular functionality but increases resource usage. | |||||
| 41. Static Content Hosting Serve static content from a dedicated service or storage to improve performance and scalability. Tradeoffs: Improves performance but may require additional storage and CDN configuration. | |||||
| 42. Strangler Fig Incrementally replace parts of a legacy system by routing functionality to new services. Tradeoffs: Enables gradual migration but adds routing complexity. | |||||
| 43. Throttling Limit the number of operations a client can perform within a timeframe. Tradeoffs: Protects system resources but may impact client experience. | |||||
| 44. Valet Key Provide clients with restricted, direct access to a specific resource using tokens or keys. Tradeoffs: Enables secure direct access but adds key management complexity. |