Monolith-ifying Perfectly Good Microservices

Learn how Intercom successfully consolidated functional microservices back into a monolithic Ruby on Rails application in this 26-minute conference talk. Discover the strategic decision-making process behind moving away from distributed systems toward a "legacy" monolithic architecture, challenging common industry trends that favor microservices and modern frameworks. Explore the original reasons these standalone services were created in Golang, Java, and Ruby on Rails, including concerns about Ruby on Rails scalability and team preferences for technologies that worked elsewhere. Understand the evaluation criteria used to determine which services should be consolidated and examine the successful outcomes achieved through this reverse migration. Gain insights into respecting existing working systems, recognizing the value of undocumented decisions and historical fixes, and applying long-term thinking to architectural decisions. Walk away with practical lessons about embracing boring technology, the importance of understanding legacy systems before replacing them, and how strategic patience can lead to significant long-term benefits in software architecture.