what are microservices architecture

When traditional server systems meet microservice architecture: a dialogue about flexibility and efficiency

Remember those complicated industrial production lines? When a piece of equipment fails, the entire line has to stop. Engineers circle around it, troubleshooting, testing, restarting... time passes in a ticking sound. This is not only the stagnation of equipment, but also the loss of efficiency. In the world of machinery and automation, we are used to solid solid bodies, precision gears, and reliable servo motors. But when the wave of digitalization sweeps across, have we ever thought about whether the software architecture, the "brain" that supports these physical hardware, is also facing a similar rigid dilemma?

That’s what we want to talk about today: microservice architecture. It sounds technical, but you can think of it like a highly specialized restaurant chef.

From "big kitchen" to "professional workstation"

In the past, the kitchen might have been a huge open space, with a chef in charge of all aspects, from chopping and stir-frying to plating. Is it efficient? Maybe. But once the chef gets sick or the orders are full, the entire system can easily collapse, making it even more difficult to come up with new dishes.

This is like a traditional monolithic software architecture. All functionality - user interface, logic processing, data access - is packaged in a huge, tightly coupled program. Want to update a small feature? You have to retest and deploy the entire Big Mac. Want to target a specific task (such as high-precision trajectory planning)? A single move affects the whole body.

The microservice architecture splits this large kitchen into a series of small and specialized workstations: one team is responsible for matching (user authentication service), another team is good at stir-fry (motion control logic service), and another team focuses on plate presentation (data visualization service). Each workstation (i.e., "microservice") runs independently and communicates through a standardized "transmission port" (usually an API). If the cutting table is slow, the wok will not be stopped immediately; if you want to introduce new plating technology, there is no need to restart the entire kitchen.

What does this mean for the servo and mechanical world?

Imagine you are designing a complex automated assembly line. The core is a multi-axis motion control system that requires ultra-high synchronization accuracy. Under traditional architecture, this entire control program may be an inseparable whole.

But after adopting the microservice architecture, the situation changed:

• Motion trajectory calculationCan become an independent service. It only focuses on receiving the target position and quickly solving the optimal path. When the algorithm is upgraded, only this service needs to be updated separately without affecting other parts.
• Real-time status monitoring and early warningBecome another service. Like a tireless supervisor, it collects temperature, vibration, and position error data of each servo motor in real time. Once an abnormality is detected, an alarm is issued immediately, and the main logic of the production line does not even need to be interrupted.
• Equipment health managementThen become a service. It silently analyzes long-term operating data and predicts that a certain steering gear may need maintenance next month, thereby scheduling maintenance in advance to avoid unplanned downtime.

This split brings tangible benefits:

• More resilient. In the event that the monitoring service becomes temporarily unresponsive, as long as the core motion control service is alive, the production line can continue to operate, but the "supervisor" is temporarily missing. Isn't this just like the fault-tolerant design of the servo drive itself?
• Iteration is faster. Do you want to try a new vibration suppression algorithm? No problem, you just need to develop and test in the "vibration control" microservice. After successful verification, the old version can be seamlessly replaced without having to make major changes to the entire system.
• More freedom in technology selection. Each microservice can be developed using the programming language or tool that best suits it. The computationally intensive path planning service may use C++, while the upper-level production order management interface will be more efficient in Python or Java.

What questions may we encounter?

"It sounds good, but will frequent communication between services make it slower and more complicated?"

This is a good question. Indeed, distributed systems introduce network latency and coordination overhead. But it’s like organizing a team of professionals. Communication costs money, but the efficiency improvements and risk isolation brought about by specialization often far exceed this cost. The key is to design a clear "service contract" (API) and a reasonable deployment strategy. For core control loops that require deterministic real-time performance, they can even be deployed within the same high-performance industrial computer, reducing network latency to nearly zero. Microservices are not dismantled for the sake of disassembly, but for "decoupling" and "autonomy".

“Will this help us select and integrate hardware?”

Very much so. When software architecture becomes flexible, hardware integration becomes more like "plug-in modules".kpowerThe servo drive provides rich and stable communication interfaces (such as EtherCAT, Modbus TCP). Under the microservice architecture, you can easily develop an independent "device driver service" that is responsible for interacting withkpowerThe server "talks" and standardizes its state data and provides it to other services. If you replace or add different types of drives in the future, the main work may be limited to updating this driver service, and the upper-layer application services will hardly need to be changed. This reduces the risk of lock-in and improves the long-term adaptability of the system.

Let's go back to the starting point

We talk about the precision of servo motors, the response of servos, the rigidity of mechanical structures, all of these physical excellences ultimately require an agile, robust digital nervous system to drive and release. The microservice architecture is not a silver bullet, but it provides an idea: how to make the software that supports the hardware as modular, maintainable, and scalable as precision machinery.

It is not a cold technical concept, but a future-oriented system way of thinking. When each functional unit can evolve independently and respond quickly, the entire system can have real vitality and resilience, allowing those excellent physical components - such as stable and reliablekpowerServo system - in the face of rapidly changing production needs, continue to exert 100% of its potential.

Isn’t this the efficiency and flexibility we have been pursuing?

Established in 2005, Kpower has been dedicated to a professional compact motion unit manufacturer, headquartered in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, China. Leveraging innovations in modular drive technology, Kpower integrates high-performance motors, precision reducers, and multi-protocol control systems to provide efficient and customized smart drive system solutions. Kpower has delivered professional drive system solutions to over 500 enterprise clients globally with products covering various fields such as Smart Home Systems, Automatic Electronics, Robotics, Precision Agriculture, Drones, and Industrial Automation.