What are the main characteristics of Modern Monoliths? At high level, the latest monolithic architectures are highly cohesive systems that address multiple critical business processes end to end, while sharing the same code repository and database, and emphasizing the modular design, separation of concerns, and clearly defined domain boundaries. Various components are independent enough to evolve at a different pace yet consolidated enough to reduce operational and especially integration complexities. Recognizing that no single system is an island, the modern monoliths offer well defined APIs and data flows for integrating with other operational and analytical systems, customers, partners, and communities. Simplicity and maximized reuse, at a fraction of the cost of typical distributed apps, teams, and processes.
The old but still relevant blog post spells out the “Modern Monolith” vision. One critically important addition to this blueprint is AI-powered solutions. AI is rapidly becoming a differentiating factor and a secret sauce for many transformational initiatives, assisting with strategy, assessment, and execution. AI is as good as the data it operates on. Modern Monoliths out of the box make the business data and meta models easily available to AI flows, via standard APIs and Data streams.
Of course nothing comes free in this world, and there are several risks and considerations when developing efficient modern monolith architecture and strategy. The top concerns we hear from the business leaders are lack of qualified workforce, outdated user experience, complex interdependencies slowing down the speed of change and feature delivery, and, last but not least, limited integration options for accessing data and business logic. The companies rolling out the Modern Monolith platforms must address these concerns head-on. And for organizations that already operate on the Legacy platforms, the prospect of starting from scratch is rarely an option. In the subsequent posts I will talk about “Integrate and Surround” modernization strategy in more details, diving deeper into business outcomes and architecture best practices for this approach.
This vision gradually became a Polestar guiding our team’s legacy modernization delivery. With ever increasing pace of change and market disruptions, the time for re-evaluating the architectural foundation is now. IBM i and mainframe systems, with proven strengths in security, reliability, and low TCO, emerge as strategic differentiators. We pulled it off back in 90s, adopting an AS400-based core banking system to rapidly changing markets, and I am convinced customers that execute on the Modern Monolith strategy have a unique competitive edge, and use it as a thrust forward, or at a minimum as a life raft in a turbulent market.
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