Building Scalable Microservices with Go and AWS

In my experience working with fintech startups and enterprise applications, I’ve learned that building scalable microservices requires careful consideration of architecture, technology choices, and operational practices.

Why Go for Microservices?

Go has become my go-to language for microservices development for several key reasons:

  • Performance: Go’s compiled nature and efficient goroutines provide excellent performance
  • Concurrency: Built-in concurrency primitives make handling multiple requests effortless
  • Simplicity: Clean syntax and minimal abstractions lead to maintainable code
  • Fast Compilation: Quick build times accelerate the development cycle

Architecture Patterns

1. Hexagonal Architecture

I’ve found hexagonal architecture (ports and adapters) particularly effective for microservices. It helps maintain clean separation between business logic and external dependencies.

1type UserService interface {
2    CreateUser(ctx context.Context, user User) error
3    GetUser(ctx context.Context, id string) (*User, error)
4}
5
6type userServiceImpl struct {
7    repo UserRepository
8    eventBus EventPublisher
9}

2. Event-Driven Communication

Using AWS SNS/SQS for async communication between services has proven invaluable:

  • Decoupling: Services don’t need to know about each other
  • Scalability: Messages can be processed at different rates
  • Reliability: Built-in retry and dead-letter queue support

Key Learnings

  1. Start with monolith, then extract: Don’t over-engineer from day one
  2. Observability is crucial: Invest in logging, metrics, and tracing early
  3. API Gateway patterns: Centralize cross-cutting concerns like auth and rate limiting
  4. Database per service: Maintain data autonomy but be prepared for distributed transactions

AWS Infrastructure

My typical stack includes:

  • EKS for container orchestration
  • RDS/DynamoDB for data persistence
  • SQS/SNS for messaging
  • CloudWatch for monitoring
  • Lambda for lightweight processing

Conclusion

Building microservices is about finding the right balance between independence and integration. Go and AWS provide a powerful combination for creating systems that can scale and evolve with your business needs.

Want to discuss microservices architecture? Feel free to reach out!