Analysis of building client parts of web applications based on the Microfrontend approach

• Main Authors: K.R. Kolos, A.I. Baranov, R.V. Petrosian
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Zhytomyr Polytechnic State University 2020-06-01
• Series: Технічна інженерія
• Subjects: microservices; web applications; microfrontend approach; architecture
• Online Access: http://ten.ztu.edu.ua/article/view/206461/206460

In today's world, web technologies are penetrating almost every aspect of human life. With web technologies, you can create, set up and synchronize accounts across devices, and manage business processes. At the same time, there is the problem of improving the level of efficiency of designing information systems that will provide access to a variety of information from any corner of the world where there is access to the Internet. More and more web applications are emerging every day, the power of computer technology is increasing, and at the same time, their complexity is increasing, which in turn causes more effort and time to support them. This necessitates the justification for using the Microfrontend approach. That is why the article highlights the advantages and disadvantages of microservice development. The basic approaches to the construction of the microfront of the application are substantiated: composition of server-side templates; integration during assembly; runtime integration using the html iframe element; runtime integration using the JavaScript programming language; runtime integration using web components technology. Based on the analysis of these approaches, the advantages are distinguished and characterized: gradual (incremental) updates; simple, unrelated codebases; independent deployment; standalone commands - and disadvantages: considerable amount of downloadable code; environmental differences; complexity of management - development of microtubes. Therefore, before switching to such an architecture, it is necessary to consider: availability of resources for a sufficient level of automation and providing management of additional necessary infrastructure; changes in the development, testing and release process of a large number of components; increasing complexity associated with the use of more tools and approaches to development; ensuring a sufficient level of quality, consistency and management of a large number of codebases. Therefore, choosing the architecture of the micro-frontend should consider and analyze the technical and organizational feasibility of adopting this approach.