Microservices are the future of software development

Telecom companies need to get on board.

Network demand is exploding. Usage is going through the roof. And yet, customer expectations for telecom companies are only getting higher. In this environment, every glitch and every buffer counts in the scramble for customer time, money, and advocacy. 

That’s why telecom companies should pay close attention to the multi-year agreement AT&T just announced with IBM. By working with IBM to launch a microservices supplier program that will modernize the company’s enterprise applications and transform business processes, AT&T has latched onto a competitive advantage that other companies will need to follow.

What are microservices? Essentially, they’re a new way of constructing enterprise applications that makes a lot more sense for businesses and customers alike. Traditionally, companies have built their applications as single, monolithic blocks of code, making maintenance and capacity updates unwieldy and time-consuming. Microservices turn applications into smaller, more manageable components that require less time to modify and can be easily scaled on demand across a Cloud-based infrastructure.

As network demand continues to grow, microservices present the best solution to keep customers satisfied and applications growing at pace.

AT&T Technology and Operations Senior Executive Vice President Melissa Arnoldi indicates that AT&T has more than 2,200 apps in its IT system. With IBM’s help, the company is beginning to break some of those apps up into microservices. These smaller, more manageable components require less time to modify and can be easily scaled on demand across a Cloud-based infrastructure.

“The microservices approach allows AT&T to break up those monoliths of code into multiple pieces that are choreographed together to make a solution. That makes a very flexible, agile, resilient, and scalable environment,” according to IBM Distinguished Engineer and Cloud CTO Doug Brown.

Microservices will improve AT&T customer experience across sales, enterprise data and ordering. They will power higher performing backend processing and allow for the continuous integration and rapid deployment of new features and functions across its services. And they will ultimately cut down IT costs.   

In addition to using microservices to revitalize and modernize its existing applications, AT&T is planning to use the approach to build packaged and pluggable software capabilities for its Indigo networking platform. “Microservices are at the very core of our vision for the future of our network,” Arnoldi said.

AT&T is a groundbreaker in its use of microservices. To stay competitive, more companies will have to follow the company’s lead. In the years ahead, microservices will be the standard for companies building new applications with the kind of flexibility, scalability and resiliency that’s necessary in today’s hyperconnected world.