Building Microservices: Designing Fine-Grained Systems

by Sam Newman

Which is right, AP or CP? Well, the reality is it depends. As the people building the system, we know the trade-off exists. We know that AP systems scale more easily and are simpler to build, and we know that a CP system will require more work due to the challenges in supporting distributed consistency. But we may not understand the business impact of this trade-off. For our inventory system, if a record is out of date by five minutes, is that OK? If the answer is yes, an AP system might be the answer. But what about the balance held for a customer in a bank? Can that be out of date? Without knowing the context in which the operation is being used, we can’t know the right thing to do. Knowing about the CAP theorem just helps you understand that this trade-off exists and what questions to ask.

AP or CP