After building, securing, and deploying your ASP.NET Core applications, it’s time to scale them for real-world production environments.
This article shows you how to break a monolith into microservices and deploy them using Kubernetes.
What Are Microservices?
Microservices are a way of designing applications as a collection of small, independent services, each handling one business capability.
Benefits:
Independent deployment
Better scalability
Fault isolation
Technology agnostic (each service can use different tech)
Drawbacks:
More complex than monolith
Requires proper monitoring & orchestration
Distributed system challenges
Microservices vs Monolith
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| Feature | Monolith | Microservices |
| ----------- | ----------- | -------------------- |
| Deployment | Single unit | Independent services |
| Scalability | Whole app | Individual services |
| Maintenance | Slower | Faster per service |
| Tech Stack | Fixed | Mixed possible |
| Complexity | Lower | Higher |
Step 1: Split ASP.NET Core App Into Services
Example split:
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| Service | Responsibility | Port |
| ---------------- | ----------------------------- | ---- |
| Users Service | Registration, Login, Identity | 5001 |
| Orders Service | Order management | 5002 |
| Products Service | Catalog & Inventory | 5003 |
| API Gateway | Routes requests to services | 5000 |
Step 2: Dockerize Each Microservice
Example Dockerfile for Users Service
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FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:8.0 AS build
WORKDIR /app
COPY . .
RUN dotnet restore
RUN dotnet publish -c Release -o out
FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/aspnet:8.0
WORKDIR /app
COPY --from=build /app/out .
EXPOSE 5001
ENTRYPOINT ["dotnet", "UsersService.dll"]Repeat for OrdersService, ProductsService, etc.
Step 3: Create Docker Compose for Local Testing
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version: "3.9"
services:
users:
build: ./UsersService
ports:
- "5001:5001"
orders:
build: ./OrdersService
ports:
- "5002:5002"
products:
build: ./ProductsService
ports:
- "5003:5003"