Workload characterization of a software-as-a-service web application implemented with a microservices architecture

Abstract

We study the workload of an Online Invoicing application with clients in the Andean region in South America. The application is offered to clients with a Software-as-a-Service model, has a microservices architecture and runs on a containerized environment on a public cloud provider. The cloud application workload described in this paper can be used as part of a workload suite comprised of different application workloads, when evaluating microservices architectures. To the best of our knowledge, this is a novel workload in the web domain and it complements other workloads publicly available. Though we make no claim of the general applicability of this workload as a “microservices benchmark”, its inclusion in evaluations could aid researchers and practitioners enrich their evaluations with tests based on a real microservices-based web application. Finally, we provide some insights regarding best-practices in microservice design, as a result of the observed workload.