Page 4: Conclusion: spoiled for choice

Like other architectural approaches, distributed systems are trade-offs and technical integration solutions are unavoidable. When deciding on one of the integration approaches presented in the article, the sometimes devastating effects on organizational and technical coupling must be considered so that the expensive advantages of distributed systems are not counteracted.

The CAP theorem provides a starting point for decision-making, but should not be used as the sole criterion. Compromises such as eventual consistency and the question of what a decision means for the degree of coupling between the individual modules must be considered when choosing an integration mechanism.

If further development is based on a problematic, ill-considered system cut, this problem can be concealed technically for a while, but cannot be solved. In the worst case, a complex problem is overwhelmed by an even more complex solution, which in turn creates far more complex problems. It is also advantageous to regularly test system boundaries to identify unnecessary dependencies and thus unnecessarily high complexity and communication costs at an early stage.

(wpl)