When your server system starts to "traffic jam": Talk about monoliths and microservices

Picture this: You have a set of old-fashioned robotic arms in your factory. It uses one brain to control all joints - fingers, wrists, elbows, shoulders. The movements were neat, but one day, the wrist joints needed to be updated, and the entire arm had to stop. The production line is stuck, everyone is staring at it, and time is ticking away.

This is the daily life of "monolithic architecture".

What exactly is a monolith and what is a microservice?

A simple analogy. The unit is like an old-fashioned radio - all the parts are soldered on a circuit board, and repairing a button may require dismantling the entire machine. What about microservices? More like today’s smartphones. The screen, battery, camera, and chip are independent modules. If the one is broken, replace it, and other functions will run as usual.

In the control world of servo motors and servos, this contrast is even more vivid.

Single systems often stuff motion control, logic processing, and data collection into a "big box." upgrade? A single move affects the whole body. Extension? Often the whole thing has to be replaced. It's like having a steering gear responsible for rotation, sensing, and communication at the same time. As a result, each one cannot achieve the ultimate perfection.

The microservice architecture splits the tasks: one service is responsible for motor torque adjustment, another is responsible for path planning, and another only handles real-time communication. They "talk" through lightweight protocols and each can be flexibly scaled.

Why does this matter to your production line efficiency?

Chatting with a customer last week, he mentioned a pain point: the factory wanted to add visual recognition to the robotic arm, but the original single controller was "too much" and almost had to replace the entire system. Later, we tried a microservice solution - only adding a visual processing module to talk to the original motion control service through a standard interface. The renovation cycle was shortened from the estimated three months to three weeks.

This is not just a technology upgrade, this is a mindset shift.

A single entity is like an army under centralized command, neat but slow; microservices are like a special team, decentralized, agile, and capable of fault tolerance. Is the feedback of a certain servo motor abnormal? In a monolith, it may cause a global shutdown; in a microservice, it often only affects local tasks, and the system automatically degrades and runs, waiting for you to calmly investigate.

How to decide which one to choose?

Don't rush to follow the trend. Ask yourself:

• Does your app require frequent updates to certain features?
• Does the load of different modules fluctuate greatly? (For example, the amount of communication data varies from time to time, but the demand for motion control is stable)
• Is there a clear direction for future expansion?

If the answer is "yes", the advantages of microservices will be more obvious. It allows you to iterate on the system like building blocks instead of reinventing the wheel every time.

Some of Kpower's practices in the field of servo drives exactly reflect this gradual change. Early products have also gone through the "large and comprehensive" stage, but as customer scenarios become more and more fragmented - some require high speed and high precision, some require multi-axis collaboration, and some require seamless connection with the Internet of Things - splitting them into dedicated microservice units has made the whole more robust.

When landing, be careful of these "pits"

Of course, microservices are not a silver bullet. If it is too fragmented, communication between services may become a new bottleneck; distributed debugging is also more complicated than monolithic. Just like modular design for a mechanical system, the reliability of the connections often determines the overall success or failure.

So the key is not to choose one or the other, but to find a balance. Sometimes, a lightweight single core paired with several peripheral microservices is the optimal solution. Just like the human body - the brain is considered a "single body", but the senses of the hands and feet are relatively independent and work extremely smoothly together.

Back to the "traffic jam" robotic arm

Technology evolution often goes like this: initially pursuing integration because of simplicity; later pursuing decomposition because of flexibility.servoThe world of motion control and motion control is moving from "one brain managing the whole body" to "many-core collaboration."

Next time you see a certain link in the production line is stuck, maybe you can think about it: is the system too "cohesive" that it has lost room for changes? Dismantling may cause short-term troubles, but it may open up longer-term smoothness.

After all, good control should not let all parts wait for an instruction; rather, let each part know when to move and how to cooperate, like a tacit dance - even if a dancer occasionally slows down by half a beat, the melody still continues.

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.