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JAIT 2023 Vol.14(5): 991-1002
doi: 10.12720/jait.14.5.991-1002

Research Opportunities in Microservices Quality Assessment: A Systematic Literature Review

Verónica C. Tapia 1,2,* and Carlos M. Gaona 2
Sistemas de Información/Universidad Técnica de Cotopaxi, Latacunga, Ecuador
Escuela de Ingeniería de Sistemas y Computación/Universidad del Valle, Santiago de Cali, Colombia;
Email: mauricio.gaona@correounivalle.edu.co (C.M.G.)
*Correspondence: veronica.tapia@utc.edu.ec (V.C.T.)

Manuscript received February 27, 2023; revised April 20, 2023; accepted May 29, 2023; published September 25, 2023.

Abstract—The growth in the development of microservices has sparked interest in evaluating their quality. This study seeks to determine the key criteria and challenges in evaluating microservices to drive research and optimize processes. The systematic review of the literature presented in this research identified that the most commonly used evaluation criteria are performance, scalability, security, cohesion, coupling, and granularity. Although evaluation tools exist, they mainly measure performance aspects such as latency and resource consumption. Challenges were identified in security, granularity, throughput, monitoring, organizational strategy, orchestration, choreography, scalability, decomposition, and monolith refactoring. In addition, research opportunities in empirical studies, analysis of quality trade-offs, and broadening of relevant perspectives and tools are noted. Challenges in the interrelation of quality attributes, metrics and patterns, automatic evaluation, architectural decisions and technical debt, domain-based design, testing, monitoring, and performance modeling are also highlighted. Challenges in orchestration, communication management and consistency between microservices, independent evolution, and scalability are also mentioned. Therefore, it is critical to address these particular challenges in microservices and to continue research to improve the understanding and practices related to quality.
 
Keywords—attributes, challenges, evaluation tools, quality metrics, software

Cite: Verónica C. Tapia and Carlos M. Gaona, "Research Opportunities in Microservices Quality Assessment: A Systematic Literature Review," Journal of Advances in Information Technology, Vol. 14, No. 5, pp. 991-1002, 2023.

Copyright © 2023 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided that the article is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.