I recently gave a presentation to the whole team at Uberflip to explain what the product team's been working on for months. The constant talk about "breaking down the monolith" resulted in a lot of blank stares. So, I present to you, a fun, visual journey that explains what a monolith is in the world of software, how it happens, and why it's important to break it down.

1. 1
BREAKING DOWN
THE
MONOLITH
Ok, seriously… what the f*!@ does that even mean?!

2. A Monolith, in our world, is not this...

3. … nor this

4. … nor this

5. Let’s step into the real world
for a moment...

6. Meet Bob and his family.

7. Meet Bob and his family.
Bob plans to build a house for his family. He’s a builder.

8. Meet Bob and his family.
Bob plans to build a house for his family. He’s a builder.
What tha??

9. Done. Just
the right
size...

10. Love me
that Rubine
Red door

11. Bob’s parents are moving in.
He builds a small addition.

12. a nice little
addition for
my folks

13. Bob has a thought.
If he builds more, he can
add tenants $$$

14. this is gonna
scale for sure

15. Bob’s a genius.
Demand goes up!
So, he keeps building...

16. 6 YEARS LATER

17. someone get
my shotgun

18. someone get
my shotgun
MONOLITH

19. If only Bob foresaw he
would house a whole
community, he may have
instead built...

20. A NEIGHBOURHOOD

21. A System of Connected Houses

22. OK, let’s return to our world
Say instead of houses we were building a SaaS platform

23. In the early days...
internet
database
server
server* website
* flipbooks
* the app

24. In the early days...
internet
database
server
server* website
* flipbooks
* the app
That’s a good
lookin’ service

25. And as we grew...
internet
database
server
server
server
server
server
server
Mongo
* flipbooks
* hubs
* API
* the app
* metrics
* website
I got some
advice for
these folks

26. And as we grew some more...
internet
server
server
server
server
server
server
Mongo
server
server
server
server
server
server
Elastic
server
server
server
server
server
server
* flipbooks
* hubs
* content score
* hub search
* API
* the app
* metrics
* website
database

27. And as we grew some more...
internet
server
server
server
server
server
server
Mongo
server
server
server
server
server
server
Elastic
server
server
server
server
server
server
* flipbooks
* hubs
* content score
* hub search
* API
* the app
* metrics
* website
database
MONOLITH

28. If only we foresaw building
a world class SaaS
platform, we probably would
have built...

29. A System of Services
internet
server
server
Hubs/FB
server
server
Website
server
server
Application
Database
server
server
Search
server
server
API
LB

30. Breaking down the monolith
We’re breaking down a single,
giant service into a system of
smaller services.

31. Doing so allows us to separate
things - code, servers, testing,
down-time, performance
optimization, etc.
Breaking down the monolith

32. It’s a good thing.
Breaking down the monolith

33. 33
Thanks!