What is a common challenge faced when using Microservices?

Managing transaction integrity across services is a significant challenge in a microservices architecture. In a traditional monolithic application, transaction management is relatively straightforward, as all components operate within the same process. However, in a microservices environment, each service is autonomous and may have its own data store. This autonomy can lead to complex scenarios involving distributed transactions, where operations that span multiple services must be orchestrated carefully to maintain data consistency and integrity.

For example, if a transaction requires updates to several services, ensuring that either all updates succeed or none at all is crucial to avoid data discrepancies. This often necessitates implementing patterns like two-phase commit or sagas, which can add complexity and overhead to the system.

In contrast, the other options present aspects that are typically enhanced in a microservices architecture. For instance, improved discoverability is a core benefit, as services can be registered and discovered dynamically. Similarly, while governance may become more challenging with an increased number of services, the benefits of clear interfaces and contracts improve governance practices. Lastly, microservices can offer better security by isolating services, yet they can also introduce new vulnerabilities if not managed properly. Thus, managing transaction integrity is rightly pointed out as a key challenge when adopting microservices.