Home // International Journal On Advances in Intelligent Systems, volume 17, numbers 3 and 4, 2024 // View article

Applying a Technical Reference Architecture to Implement a Microservices-based Insurance Application

Authors:
Christin Schulze
Henrik Meyer
Arne Koschel
Andreas Hausotter

Keywords: Microservices Architecture; Reference Architecture; Cloud Native; SOA; Insurance Industry.

Abstract:
To overcome the shortcomings of traditional monolithic applications, the Microservices Architecture (MSA) style is playing an increasingly vital role in providing business services. This also applies to the insurance industry, which is facing challenges like cut-throat competition and decreasing customer loyalty. Providing scalable and resilient services of high availability in a flexible and agile manner, which comes with the MSA style, is undoubtedly a competitive advantage. However, the insurance industry’s application landscape is characterized by the coexistence of historically grown systems based on different architectural paradigms. Therefore, the integration of microservices with Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) services or even legacy systems induces additional complexity. A reference architecture may lower the complexity of this integration task by defining an architectural framework of MSA-based applications in a heterogeneous environment. In this contribution, we present a technical reference architecture for our partner insurance companies. The reference architecture is shaped along a cloud-native approach to provide good scalability, short release cycles, and high resilience. As a key feature, a technical microservice supports the integration of SOA services. To demonstrate the applicability of the technical reference architecture, it is used to implement a typical insurance business process in the context of car insurance. The target architecture comprises four business microservices and a SOA service managed by an ESB.

Pages: 132 to 139

Copyright: Copyright (c) to authors, 2024. Used with permission.

Publication date: December 30, 2024

Published in: journal

ISSN: 1942-2679