Work

Assessment of performance and its scalability in microservice architectures: Systematic literature review

Year: 2025

Type: review

Abstract: The microservice architecture structures an application as a collection of small autonomous services, enhancing development practices and maintainability. It impacts system performance and scalability, which are influenced by the architectural design, the system deployment, and usage. In this paper, we present a systematic literature review (SLR) on the assessment of performance and scalability in the microservice architecture, aiming to identify research gaps and assess the current state of knowledge. The review protocol screened 801 studies, selecting 29 primary studies for detailed analysis. We perform comparisons of studies and try to identify the main gaps in current research and suggest areas for further investigation. The main conclusion is that the current research partially addresses the dimensions associated with the performance and scalability qualities of microservice systems. In particular, there is a lack of comparative studies of architectural patterns and styles or comparable assessment models and methods. Therefore, a systematic approach is lacking and the paper reports a set of open research trends to guide researchers in the area of microservice-based software architecture quality assessment.

Source: Journal of Systems and Software

DOI: 10.1016/j.jss.2025.112500

Authors: Helena Rodrigues, António Rito Silva, Alberto Avritzer

Institutions: Centro ALGORITMI, University of Minho

Language: English

Topic: Software System Performance and Reliability

Subfield: Computer Networks and Communications

Field: Computer Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,820

Funder: Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia