200-901 Software Development and Design Practice Question
A developer is designing a microservices architecture for a network monitoring application. Which of the following is a key advantage of microservices over a monolithic architecture?
⚠ Common exam trap
Cisco often tests the misconception that microservices simplify communication or reduce latency, when in reality they introduce network overhead and complexity, making independent deployability and scalability the primary advantage.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Independent deployability and scalability of services
Microservices architecture enables each service to be deployed, updated, and scaled independently without affecting other services. This is a key advantage over monolithic architectures, where any change requires rebuilding and redeploying the entire application. For a network monitoring application, independent scalability allows resource-intensive services (e.g., packet capture) to scale separately from lightweight services (e.g., alerting).
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Lower latency due to in-process communication
Why it's wrong here
Microservices communicate over network, which adds latency compared to in-process calls in a monolith.
- ✗
Easier to maintain as a single codebase
Why it's wrong here
A single codebase contradicts the decentralised ownership and independent deployability that microservices provide for a network monitoring application, where different services (e.g., packet capture, alerting, data storage) must scale and update independently without coupling. The temptation arises because a monolithic codebase simplifies initial development and debugging, and would be correct for a small, low-traffic application with a single team and no need for independent service scaling.
- ✓
Independent deployability and scalability of services
Why this is correct
Each microservice can be deployed and scaled independently, improving resource utilization.
- ✗
Simpler inter-service communication
Why it's wrong here
Microservices often require complex communication patterns (e.g., REST, messaging).
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