# Data Management in Microservices: State of the Practice, Challenges, and Research Directions

**Authors:** Rodrigo Laigner, Yongluan Zhou, Marcos Antonio Vaz Salles, Yijian Liu, Marcos Kalinowski  
**arXiv:** [2103.00170](https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.00170)  
**Date:** 2021-02-27  
**Summary page:** https://www.summarizepaper.com/en/paper/2103.00170v1/

## Key points

- Adoption of microservice architectures has increased in the industry for scalability, fault-tolerance, and polyglot persistence
- Lack of thorough investigation into data management in microservices
- Detailed investigation conducted through systematic literature review, analysis of open-source applications, and online survey involving over 120 practitioners and researchers
- Categorization of state of practice and identification of challenges that cannot be solved solely through software engineering practices
- Need for novel database systems and data management tools to support isolation for microservices
- Issues include fault isolation, performance isolation, data ownership, and independent schema evolution across microservices
- System-level supports necessary to alleviate burden faced by practitioners working with microservices
- Research directions aimed at developing specialized database systems and tools to better support microservice architecture

## Summary

The adoption of microservice architectures has increased in the industry to achieve scalability, fault-tolerance, and polyglot persistence. However, there is a lack of thorough investigation into the state of practice and the major challenges faced by practitioners in terms of data management. To address this gap, this paper presents a detailed investigation of data management in microservices. The study follows a methodology that includes a systematic literature review, analysis of open-source microservice-based applications, and an online survey involving over 120 practitioners and researchers. Through this process, the researchers were able to categorize the state of practice and identify several challenges that cannot be solved solely through software engineering practices. Based on their observations, the researchers highlight the need for novel database systems and data management tools that support isolation for microservices. This includes addressing issues such as fault isolation, performance isolation, data ownership, and independent schema evolution across microservices. These system-level supports are necessary to alleviate the burden faced by practitioners working with microservices. In conclusion, this paper provides valuable insights into the current state of practice and challenges in data management for microservices. It also identifies research directions aimed at developing specialized database systems and tools to better support the needs of this architectural style.