enterprise-architecture-patterns

Enterprise architecture patterns provide proven approaches for microservices design, including Domain-Driven Design for bounded contexts, Event Sourcing for state management, and CQRS for separating read and write concerns. Apply these patterns to define service boundaries, event flows, and scalability strategies for distributed systems.

Sagas manage distributed transactions across microservices. Orchestration uses a central coordinator to direct service calls sequentially; choreography triggers services through events. Choose orchestration for explicit control or choreography for loose coupling and scalability in event-driven platforms.

Event Sourcing stores all state changes as immutable events; CQRS separates read and write models. Use both for systems requiring audit trails, temporal queries, and independent read optimization—especially in real-time event-driven platforms and multi-tenant SaaS applications.

API gateways handle client routing, authentication, and request aggregation at system entry points. Service mesh manages inter-service communication, resilience, and observability. Both patterns layer security and reliability into distributed architectures without changing service code.

Enterprise architecture covers circuit breakers to prevent cascading failures, caching to reduce load, and horizontal scaling strategies. These patterns work together to handle failures gracefully and maintain performance as traffic grows across cloud-native deployments.

DDD strategic patterns like Bounded Contexts help define microservice boundaries and reduce coupling. While not strictly required, applying DDD upfront prevents misaligned services and simplifies Context Mapping between services in complex enterprise systems.