Scott M. Fulton, III @SMFulton3@qoto.org

My triumphant return to The New Stack: There's been a resumption of the debate among #infrastructure software #developers over whether decoupling an organization's functionality into #microservices in the name of #scalability reduces complexity or re-introduces it. This happened when Amazon Prime Video engineers made an architectural decision, and chronicled it in their blog. For a streaming video monitoring function, they moved _away_ from microservices, they said, and back toward a #monolithic architecture, for purposes of simplicity, speed, performance, and cost reduction.

Before long, the whole debate fired up again: Microservices only buys you so much scalability, some said, but eventually the complexity of its messaging between services eats any speed gains you had at the start.

At least that's what Prime Video's engineers appeared to be saying. But a close examination of their situation by world-class experts, including from Amazon Web Services (AWS), revealed that the devil was lurking outside the details after all and out in the open where we should have seen him: Yes, they had consolidated some #StepFunctions, but in so doing, they actually went the other direction. They made a microservice; the blog's author simply didn't realize it.

So what was this debate truly about, then? Do we not know a monolith when we see it anymore? Are we so quick to take sides in a debate that we've lost track of what we're actually arguing about?

No, that wasn't a digression. I'm still talking about #cloudcomputing infrastructure.

Anyway, do take some time today to read this article, which features an all-star cast including Donnie Berkholz @dberkholz,
Lori MacVittie from F5, David Mooter from Forrester, Laura Tacho, Ajay Nair from AWS,
@microsoft CVP
Brendan Burns, and one of the original microservices champions, Adrian Cockcroft @adrianco.

https://thenewstack.io/amazon-prime-videos-microservices-move-doesnt-lead-to-a-monolith-after-all/

I think it was Marina Sirtis who first revealed how replacing a female #startrek character's spandex catsuit with a regular Starfleet uniform made the writers treat her more as a brilliant human being. Here we see the same phenomenon with the already brilliant @JeriLRyan in the Voyager episode "Relativity."

First of all, this entire episode is worth it for _this first shot alone_. Second, can we admit that, as Trek fans for over a half-century, we have a bad habit of playing dress-up with our girl characters, that makes both the writers and the viewers treat them more like paper dolls than people? Put this woman in the same wardrobe as any other cast member, and she still radiates, but in a more natural way.

Watching the moment that "Leverage" suddenly, and most welcomely, became the @JeriLRyan Show.

When I say It's time for a Jeri Ryan-centered regular series, I'm speaking from having watched hundreds of scenes like this one (sometimes with the aid of rewind) and witnessed each whole scene magnetically align itself with her presence. Everything and everyone else is in her orbit until the credits roll. I see a scene like this, and I'm astounded that no one has written a _lead character_around this person.