What is a monolith server ?

A monolith server is a server that utilizes a monolithic architecture, as a monolithic server is self-contained and does not require any dependence on any other servers. The reason behind this kind of design follows a logical approach that the server in itself is capable and responsible for all the tasks that have to be performed and can perform every step needed to perform a function, so it doesn’t have the hectic job to not process any request due to fault of some outside server.

Monolithic Architecture:

An architecture can be categorized as Monolithic if it consists of all the dependencies in a single program. The Monolithic Architecture comprises of the following single platform components to properly function the complete server:

1. Authorization: It authorizes if the user is associated with the server or not, if the server cannot verify the user then the authorization is failed and an error is returned.
2. Presentation: It handles the HTTP requests and responds with either HTML or XML/JSON(for web services APIs).
3. Database layer: This layer is responsible for accessing the database with the data access objects.
4. Business logic: This comprises the business model of the server architecture.
5. Application integration: This is this integration with the REST APIs or integration with any other Data Sources.
6. Notification module: This module carries the operation of sending email notifications whenever the required condition is met.

Applications of a Monolithic server:

• These can be used to implement simple architecture projects such as static websites.
• These can be used as a base while commencing a new project or software as we can switch to microservices at a later stage whenever required.
• These are mainly used for static design as they are easy to maintain in a single file or directory.
• They can be used when an application requires a direct data interface with the database.

Advantages of Monolithic server:

• Its very simple to work at the beginning with the Monolithic Architecture.
• We can simply implement end-to-end testing with UI testing with Selenium.
• It is easy to deploy to the server as you have to copy the packaged application to a server.
• It is simple to scale as we can run multiple copies behind a load balancer.
• Proper management of the codebase can ensure productivity for a greater time period.

Disadvantages of Monolithic server:

• If the application is too large it will be difficult to maintain the server.
• If the application is complex the changes can take time to be done correctly.
• The size can slow down the startup time of the application.
• It will be challenging while scaling if different modules have conflicting requirements.
• Monolithic servers are less reliable in terms of bugs as this can potentially bring down the entire process.
• Monolithic servers have difficulty while using advanced technologies at a later stage in development.