A tailored course, built for your situation
Architecting Scalable Systems: From Monolith to Microservices
A structured path to designing high-impact distributed systems with confidence
$199 one-time
24-hour access provisioning
30-day money-back guarantee
Hand-built implementation playbook
12 modules. 12 chapters per module. 144 chapters total.
12 modules, each with 12 chapters (144 chapters total), text-based, plus downloadable templates and a hand-built implementation playbook delivered alongside course access.
Transitioning from monolithic to microservices isn't just about tech, it's about clarity, ownership, and shipping without breaking.
The situation this course is for
You're trusted to scale systems, but trade-offs around service boundaries, data consistency, and team alignment create hidden delays. Documentation is fragmented. Patterns emerge too late. Teams struggle to align on contracts. The pressure to deliver fast clashes with the need to build sustainably. Without a repeatable framework, even strong engineers drown in context switching and tribal decisions.
Who this is for
Senior Principal Engineers and Lead Developers transitioning from delivery roles into system ownership, working in fast-scaling environments with Java/Spring stacks.
Who this is not for
Junior developers still mastering core programming concepts or engineers not involved in system design decisions.
What you walk away with
- Define clear service boundaries using domain-driven tactics
- Decompose legacy systems without introducing technical debt
- Design resilient inter-service communication with predictable failure modes
- Align engineering teams around API contracts and ownership models
- Implement observability and scaling strategies that survive production
The 12 modules (with all 144 chapters)
Module 1. Foundations of System Scalability
Establish core principles of scalable design, including stateless services, horizontal scaling, and the cost of coupling. Learn how to assess system readiness for decomposition using real-world heuristics.
12 chapters in this module
- Defining scalability
- Stateless vs stateful
- The cost of coupling
- Readiness assessment
- Tech stack alignment
- Team topology fit
- Pattern recognition
- Decision logging
- Ownership models
- Scaling levers
- Failure domains
- Architectural guardrails
Module 2. Domain-Driven Service Boundaries
Use domain modeling to identify natural service splits. Apply event storming and bounded context mapping to align technical design with business capabilities.
12 chapters in this module
- Event storming intro
- Identifying aggregates
- Bounded contexts
- Context mapping
- Ubiquitous language
- Domain verbs
- Event sourcing basics
- Command separation
- Context conflicts
- Integration patterns
- Domain ownership
- Cross-team alignment
Module 3. Decomposing the Monolith
Break down legacy applications safely using strangler patterns, anti-corruption layers, and incremental extraction. Avoid common pitfalls that increase risk.
12 chapters in this module
- Strangler pattern
- Anti-corruption layer
- Incremental extraction
- Dependency mapping
- Data coupling
- Shared database risks
- Versioned APIs
- Dual writing
- Feature flags
- Traffic routing
- Testing in parallel
- Rollback planning
Module 4. Designing Resilient APIs
Build robust, versioned APIs with clear contracts. Focus on idempotency, error semantics, and client expectations to reduce integration friction.
12 chapters in this module
- REST vs RPC
- Idempotency keys
- Error codes
- Retry logic
- Rate limiting
- Circuit breakers
- API versioning
- Contract testing
- Schema evolution
- Client expectations
- Documentation standards
- API gateways
Module 5. Data Consistency Across Services
Manage distributed data without distributed transactions. Implement sagas, eventual consistency, and compensating actions that preserve integrity.
12 chapters in this module
- Distributed transactions
- Saga pattern
- Compensating actions
- Eventual consistency
- Two-phase commit
- Message queues
- Idempotent consumers
- Data reconciliation
- Consistency windows
- Audit trails
- Data ownership
- Cross-service queries
Module 6. Event-Driven Communication
Leverage events for loose coupling and scalability. Design event contracts, handle failures, and ensure message durability across services.
12 chapters in this module
- Event modeling
- Event contracts
- Message brokers
- Kafka basics
- Pub/sub patterns
- Event sourcing
- Schema registry
- Dead letter queues
- Retry policies
- Event versioning
- Fan-out strategies
- Idempotent processing
Module 7. Observability and Monitoring
Implement logging, metrics, and tracing to gain visibility across distributed systems. Build dashboards that reveal bottlenecks and failure points.
12 chapters in this module
- Three pillars
- Structured logging
- Log aggregation
- Metric types
- Alerting rules
- Distributed tracing
- Trace context
- Service maps
- Error budgets
- SLOs
- Incident correlation
- Debugging flows
Module 8. Scaling Stateful Services
Handle state in microservices using sharding, replication, and caching. Understand trade-offs between consistency, availability, and latency.
12 chapters in this module
- Sharding strategies
- Consistent hashing
- Replication models
- Leader-follower
- Caching layers
- Cache invalidation
- Session state
- Database per service
- Read replicas
- Write amplification
- Latency budgets
- Backpressure
Module 9. Security in Distributed Systems
Secure service-to-service communication, manage identity propagation, and protect sensitive data across boundaries.
12 chapters in this module
- Service identity
- mTLS basics
- OAuth2 flows
- Token propagation
- Secrets management
- Vault patterns
- Role-based access
- Audit logging
- Data encryption
- Zero trust
- API security
- Threat modeling
Module 10. Team Topology and Ownership
Align engineering teams with service boundaries. Use platform thinking to reduce cognitive load and improve delivery velocity.
12 chapters in this module
- Team service fit
- Platform teams
- Internal tools
- Cognitive load
- Ownership models
- Handoff protocols
- Cross-team SLAs
- Documentation ownership
- Support rotation
- Feedback loops
- Team autonomy
- Governance
Module 11. CI/CD for Microservices
Design pipelines that support independent deployment. Manage testing, staging, and rollback strategies across many services.
12 chapters in this module
- Independent pipelines
- Testing strategies
- Canary releases
- Blue-green
- Feature flags
- Rollback automation
- Environment parity
- Dependency pinning
- Artifact promotion
- Pipeline as code
- Testing in prod
- Deployment safety
Module 12. Operational Excellence
Run systems reliably at scale. Focus on incident response, postmortems, and continuous improvement to reduce toil and increase resilience.
12 chapters in this module
- Incident response
- On-call basics
- Postmortems
- Blameless culture
- Runbooks
- Toil reduction
- Automation targets
- Chaos engineering
- Resilience testing
- Feedback loops
- Cost monitoring
- Tech debt tracking
How this maps to your situation
- You're leading system design but lack a consistent framework
- Your team struggles with service ownership and boundaries
- You're extracting a monolith and need a safe path forward
- You need observability to debug production issues faster
Before vs. after
Before
Unclear service boundaries, inconsistent design decisions, and growing technical debt slow down delivery and increase risk.
After
A clear, repeatable method for designing scalable systems, shared understanding across teams, and confidence in every architectural choice.
What's included with your purchase
- 12 modules with 12 chapters each (144 chapters)
- Downloadable templates and worked examples for every module
- Hand-built implementation playbook delivered alongside course access
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Delivery and format
- Course and learning environment access provisioned within 24 hours of purchase
- Hand-built implementation playbook delivered alongside course access
Format: Text-based modules and chapters in the Art of Service learning environment, plus downloadable templates and worked examples for every chapter, plus the hand-built implementation playbook delivered alongside course access.
Time investment: Approximately 3-4 hours per module, designed for working engineers. Total time: 36-48 hours over 12 weeks.
If nothing changes
Without a structured approach, teams default to ad-hoc decisions that create hidden coupling, increase incident frequency, and delay scaling efforts by months.
How this compares to the alternatives
Unlike generic cloud certifications or broad software architecture books, this course delivers targeted, actionable steps for engineers leading real-world system decomposition, no theory without practice.
Frequently asked
Is this course focused on a specific cloud provider?
No. Concepts are cloud-agnostic and apply across AWS, GCP, and Azure.
How is the course structured?
12 modules, each containing 12 chapters (144 chapters total).
Will this help if I'm not using Java?
Yes. While examples use Java/Spring, the patterns apply to any language or stack.
$199 one-time. Approximately 3-4 hours per module, designed for working engineers. Total time: 36-48 hours over 12 weeks..
Within 24 hours your account in the learning environment is provisioned and the tailored implementation playbook is delivered alongside it.
30-day money-back guarantee·
144 chapters·
Hand-built playbook included·
Account access within 24 hours