Overview
Microservices architectures fail when service boundaries are drawn along technical layers (frontend-service, database-service, auth-service) rather than domain boundaries — producing chatty services that must coordinate on every operation and a distributed monolith that combines the complexity of microservices with the coupling of a monolith. Domain-Driven Design's bounded context concept provides the principle for drawing boundaries that produce genuinely independent, deployable services.
The Microservices Design Framework defines service boundaries by domain, designs communication patterns for each interaction type, and establishes the infrastructure prerequisites that must exist before microservices can be operated reliably.
Key Features
Bounded context identification criteria
Service catalog template
Synchronous vs. async decision criteria
Saga pattern with compensating transactions