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Monolithic Architecture: Single System, Single Truth
A major European airline’s booking system goes down during a microservices migration. Meanwhile, their “outdated” monolithic backup system, running since the 90s, kicks in and handles millions of bookings without breaking a sweat. This isn’t a fictional tale — it’s a real story that challenges our assumptions about system architecture.
This was initially posted in my newsletter BuildItSimple!, if you don’t have a medium membership, you can read it here:
The Essence of Monolithic Systems
A monolithic system isn’t just a single codebase — it’s a philosophical approach to system design. Everything your system needs to do lives in one place: one deployment unit, one process space, one database. It’s the architectural equivalent of a self-contained city where every service and resource is within walking distance.
But don’t mistake simplicity of deployment for simplicity of design. Modern monoliths can be sophisticated systems — they just choose their complexity boundaries differently than distributed…
