Monolith To Microservices Migration Company
Break the monolith.
Break the monolith.
Ship independently.
Strangler fig decomposition. Docker containerization. Kubernetes on Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud Platform. Zero-downtime extraction of services from your existing monolith. Your engineers deploy one service without touching everything else.
0
Downtime migrations
12
Weeks average first service
7x
Release velocity lift
The Strangler Fig Pattern
API Gateway
Legacy
Monolith
decomposing...
Auth
Service
Service
Order
Service
Service
User
Service
Service
Payment
Service
Service
Notif
Service
Service
Services wrap around the monolith. Traffic routes away. Monolith shrinks.
Cinema band · Engineering team mapping service boundaries on large monitor
Replace with engineering team reviewing service boundary diagram, natural overhead light, side profiles · 1600×533
The real cost of a monolith
One service fails.
One service fails.
In a monolith, everything fails.
Monolith deployment failure
EVERYTHING
DOWN
Auth • Orders • Users
Payments • Reports
Payments • Reports
Blast radius: 100%
One broken deployment brings every user, every feature, every revenue stream offline simultaneously
Pain · On-call engineer staring at production alert at night
Replace with on-call engineer at laptop with production alert, screen glow, dark room, side angle · 800×300
Microservices fault isolation
Payment
Service
AFFECTED
Service
AFFECTED
Auth
OK
OK
Orders
OK
OK
Users
OK
OK
Notif
OK
OK
Search
OK
OK
Report
OK
OK
Blast radius: 1 of 7 services
The payment service is degraded. Every other service continues running. Users complete orders. Notifications fire. Search works.
- Deploy one service without touching the others
- Scale payment processing independently of user authentication
- Different teams own different services and deploy on their own schedule
Migration process
From monolith audit to independent service deployments in 12 weeks.
The strangler fig migration does not require a big-bang rewrite. Each phase extracts one bounded context, validates it, and routes traffic away from the monolith incrementally.
1
Weeks 1 to 2
Monolith Audit and Domain Mapping
Codebase analysis, coupling heat map, domain boundary
identification using domain-driven design. No code changes
yet.
2
Weeks 3 to 4
Strangler Fig Architecture Design
Service boundaries documented. API contracts defined. API
Gateway designed. Extraction sequence prioritized by
business value and coupling complexity.
3
Weeks 5 to 8
Service Extraction and API Gateway
First 2 to 3 bounded contexts extracted as independent
services. API Gateway routes traffic. Monolith still handles
remaining domains during transition.
4
Weeks 9 to 10
Kubernetes Orchestration and CI/CD
Services containerized with Docker. Kubernetes cluster
configured. Helm charts per service. GitHub Actions or
GitLab CI pipelines with rolling deployments and automated
rollback.
5
Weeks 11 to 12
Traffic Migration and Monolith Sunset
All traffic routed through API Gateway to extracted
services. Monolith decommissioned or reduced to a thin
adapter. Observability dashboards handed over.
Deliverable: Domain Boundary Map
Monolith Coupling Analysis
Payment
High coupling
Auth
Medium
Notify
Low: extract first
Total bounded contexts identified: 7 · Recommended
extraction sequence: Notify → User → Auth → Order →
Payment
Deliverable: Architecture Document
API Contract Registry
POST /api/notify/sendv1 Defined
GET /api/user/:idv1 Defined
POST /api/auth/tokenDraft
Deliverable: Live Services via API Gateway
/notify/*notify-service:3001EXTRACTED
/user/*user-service:3002EXTRACTED
/* (remaining)monolith:8080STILL LIVE
Deliverable: Kubernetes Cluster + CI/CD
notify-svc
3/3 replicas
user-svc
2/2 replicas
auth-svc
Deploying...
CI/CD
Pipeline green
Rolling update strategy · Automated rollback on failure
· HPA enabled
Deliverable: Full Microservices Architecture
100%
Traffic on services
7
Services running
0
Monolith instances
Migration complete. Handoff docs, runbooks, and Helm
chart repository transferred.
Before and after the migration
Six dimensions.
Six dimensions.
Every one
transformed.
Dimension
Your Monolith Today
During Migration
After Redefine
Value · Engineer reviewing distributed tracing dashboard after migration
"Now when something is slow, we can see exactly which service is responsible. We used to spend two days narrowing that down."
Replace with engineer reviewing distributed tracing dashboard, monitor glow, side angle · 1200×400
Client proof
Monolith to microservices. Zero downtime. Faster releases.
Case Study · Platform team reviewing migration completion dashboard
Replace with engineering team viewing migration success, screen glow · 1200×400
Migration complete
Client
SaaS Platform, B2B Enterprise
SaaS Product · Amazon Web Services EKS · Docker
The Problem
The existing monolithic application caused slow-release cycles, frequent outages, and limited scalability. Deployment processes were tightly coupled and risky, making it difficult to introduce new features or scale reliably as usage increased.
The Result
0x
faster release cycles after microservices extraction, Kubernetes on Amazon Web Services EKS, and automated CI/CD with zero-downtime rolling deployments
Week 0, starting state
Monolithic application on a single deployment unit
All features, authentication, orders, payments,
notifications, reporting, deployed together. Any change
required full regression. Release window: once every 3 weeks
with a 2-day freeze before.
Week 3, architecture approved
Domain boundaries documented. API contracts defined.
6 bounded contexts identified. Extraction sequence agreed:
Notifications first (lowest coupling), then Auth, then
Orders. API Gateway design finalized.
Week 7, first service live
Notification service running independently in production
Zero downtime cutover. Notification service deployed on
Kubernetes and handling 100% of notification traffic.
Monolith notification module disabled. First team ships
independently.
Week 12, migration complete
All services extracted. Monolith decommissioned.
Docker containers for all 6 services. Kubernetes on Amazon
Web Services EKS. CI/CD pipelines with automated testing,
rolling updates, and rollback. All services deploying
independently.
Post-migration
Faster releases. Improved uptime. Greater resilience.
Zero-downtime deployments reduced operational risk.
Cloud-native architecture positioned the platform for
scalable growth and continued feature development at pace.
7x
Release velocity
0
Downtime events
6
Services extracted
Migration approach matters
Three approaches.
Three approaches.
One is right.
High risk
Big Bang Rewrite
Stop the world. Rewrite everything in parallel. Launch on a date.
Monolith runs while you rewrite everything. Feature parity
risk is enormous.
Launch day is all-or-nothing. No rollback path once you cut
over.
Business builds on the old system for 12 to 18 months while
engineers build the new one.
Most failed enterprise migrations use this approach. Redefine does not propose it.
Redefine approach
Strangler Fig Pattern
Extract one service at a time. Route traffic incrementally. Monolith shrinks.
Zero downtime. Monolith stays live throughout. Rollback is
always available.
First service delivers value in week 7. You don't wait 18
months for the benefit.
Domain boundaries validated against real traffic before the
next extraction begins.
This is how Redefine extracts every service. Incremental. Validated. Reversible.
Not a migration
Lift-and-Shift
Take the monolith, containerize it, run it on Kubernetes. Call it done.
The monolith is still a monolith. Docker doesn't change the
coupling. Kubernetes doesn't change the blast radius.
You now have container overhead and Kubernetes complexity
on top of the same architectural problems.
Release velocity does not improve. Teams still cannot
deploy independently. Fault isolation: unchanged.
Often sold as "cloud migration." Does not solve the deployment and coupling problems of a monolith.
Questions
What engineering teams ask before committing to a migration.
Migration risk, timeline, and team impact are the real blockers. Direct answers below.
Pricing approach
Architecture sprint first. Cost of migration is determined by what we find in the monolith audit.
The Sprint 1 deliverable is the domain boundary map, extraction sequence, and a project cost model. You approve before extraction begins.
We extract the service with the lowest coupling score first,
meaning the one with the fewest inbound dependencies from
the rest of the monolith. This is a notification, reporting,
or email service. Low coupling means low extraction risk,
which means the first service goes live fast and proves the
pattern works before you extract anything more complex. We
then move toward higher-coupling domains (authentication,
orders, payments) once the team has extraction confidence
and the API Gateway is stable.
No. Most monoliths we migrate have sparse or no test
coverage. The strangler fig pattern does not require the
monolith to have tests. The approach is: run both the
monolith and the extracted service in parallel, compare
outputs under real traffic (shadow mode), and validate
correctness before cutting over. We also write integration
tests for each extracted service as part of the extraction
sprint, so by the end of the migration, the new architecture
has the test coverage the monolith never did.
For the initial proposal, no. We need the codebase and any
architecture documentation you have. For the audit sprint,
we need read access to the code repository and the ability
to run the application locally. We do not need production
access to plan the migration. During extraction, we work in
a staging environment that mirrors production until a
service is ready for traffic. Production access for
deployment is handled with your team's infrastructure
engineers, not directly by us.
3 to 6 bounded contexts in 12 to 16 weeks. 6 to 10 bounded
contexts in 20 to 28 weeks. The variance comes from coupling
complexity, shared database extent, and whether the monolith
has any existing API surface we can use. We scope this in
the audit sprint and give you a week-by-week breakdown
before extraction begins. The first service is live in week
6 to 8 regardless of total project length.
The shared database is the hardest part of every migration
and the part most agencies skip. Each extracted service gets
its own database, a database-per-service pattern. The
transition is done with the strangler fig applied to data:
the extracted service writes to its own database while
synchronization pipelines keep it in sync with the
monolith's shared database during the transition window.
Once the service is fully routing traffic and the monolith
modules are disabled, the sync is decommissioned and the old
tables are archived. This requires careful planning and is
covered in the architecture document produced in Sprint 1.
Right match?
Select what describes your current situation.
Not every monolith needs microservices. We are direct about when the investment is worth it and when it is not.
Match score0 of 6 selected
Not sure whether you need microservices or just better modular code? Describe your architecture and we will give you a direct opinion.
Deployment is risky and teams fear releasing on Fridays
Tightly coupled deployments with wide blast radius are the core indicator.
Multiple teams are blocked by a shared codebase and shared release schedule
Team autonomy is the primary benefit microservices deliver beyond technical architecture.
One or two features cause disproportionate load that you cannot scale independently
Independent scaling requires independent services. A monolith scales as a unit.
The monolith has 5 or more years of accumulated coupling and no clear module boundaries
This is where the strangler fig pays for itself. Incremental extraction versus full rewrite.
Probably not the right investment if:
Your team has fewer than 5 engineers total
Microservices add operational overhead that small teams often cannot absorb. Modular monolith may be the better answer.
Your monolith is under 2 years old and problems are organizational, not architectural
Better module boundaries, code review practices, and branch policies often solve what teams attribute to the architecture.
Start here
Describe your monolith. Get a migration plan.
No commitment. No pitch. A domain boundary analysis and extraction sequence in 3 business days.
01
Submit your brief
Describe the language, team size, approximate lines of code, and the coupling pain you are experiencing.
02
Architecture call within 48 hours
With a migration architect. We ask about the codebase, database structure, and deployment pain.
03
Migration proposal in 3 days
Extraction sequence, domain boundary map, timeline per service, and sprint-level cost estimate.
04
Audit sprint within 1 week of sign-off
Codebase analysis, coupling heat map, and API contract design. First service extraction follows.
Form
48 hours
Architecture call
3 days
Migration plan
34+
Monoliths migrated
0
Downtime events