8 Best Microservices and Service-Oriented (SOA) Courses for Experienced Developers in 2024

My favorite online course to learn SOA and Microservices Architecture from Udemy, Coursera, and other online portals

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Hello guys, Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Microservice Architecture are essential skills for modern Java developers as most of the Java applications developed today follow SOA and Microservice architecture or their variants.

Not just that, the ability to think about architecture trade-offs and design systems at scale is also a key skill that tech lead and software architects are expected to have. Having it is a good way to get promoted or increase your salary and for your career growth

And in the world of architecture, it’s hard to have a conversation these days without mentioning microservices. The idea of Microservices might not be new, but it has lately become a preferred way of designing large-scale applications.

In a Microservices architecture, different features are split into separate modules/codebases. They then work in conjunction with each other forming a large service as a whole. This helps with easier and cleaner app maintenance, feature development, testing, and deployment in comparison to a monolithic architecture.

Learning about Microservices can also help in System Design Interviews, particularly when you need to address the concepts of single responsibility and separation of concerns.

Similarly, good knowledge of SOA architecture not only helps you to understand your current project better but also can give your career a boost, especially to senior Java developers who want to become software or solution architects.

In the past, I have shared some books for aspiring software architects, and you can also use these courses along with those to master your architecture and solution design skills.

Anyway, SOA architecture provides an alternative to monolith architecture and focuses on small applications providing dedicated services. Some of the common examples of SOA architecture are Web Services and Representational State Transfer (REST) architecture, which is very common in the Java world.

When I was learning SOA last year, I was looking for an online training course that can provide me enough theory and some real-world practical experience, but I didn’t find a single one that fits my requirements.

Most of the online courses which I found suffered from two main problems: being too technical from the start, and taking too much of a theoretical approach, while I was needed a balanced course that is neither too much theoretical, neither too thin on theory.

My quest for the best course to learn SOA brought me a couple of useful ones like the Service-Oriented Architecture course on Coursera, which is also part of the Software Design and Architecture Specialization and offered by the University of Alberta.

Service-Oriented Architecture

This course tackles both problems, and it will help make you understand the business behind SOA before it jumps into technology.

As you’ll not only learn about the fundamentals of SOA, including architecture, services, service types, reuse, and composition but also see some real-world solutions built using SOA.

You’ll also learn about the importance of designing a standard semantic model for all SOA services, and after completing the course, you will have knowledge of all the tools needed to implement the SOA architecture in your project.

This course is also part of the Software Design and Architecture Specialization, one of the popular Coursera certification on Software architecture.

Software Design and Architecture

8 Best SOA and Microservice Architecture Courses for Java Developers in 2024

If you want, you can directly jump on the Service Oriented Architecture course on Coursera it’s a good one but if you need more choices, here are some of the other useful SOA courses for programmers.

1. Microservices Architecture — The Complete Guide

This is the best course to learn about Microservices Architecture from scratch, one of the most popular software architecture in today’s cloud computing world and adopted by companies like NetFlix, Uber, and many more.

If you are looking for a comprehensive yet engaging course to learn about Microservices architecture then this course is for you. Created by Memi Lavi, a Senior Software Architect, and Consultant, this course will teach you everything you need to learn about Microservices architecture.

Here are things covered in this course:

1. What is Microservices Architecture and when to use it
2. What Problem Microservices solve?
3. The 9 attributes of Microservices
4. Architecture Process of Microservices
5. How to design a robust and reliable Microservice
6. Techniques for deploying and testing Microservices
7. Service Mesh — What it is, its goal, and how and when to use it
8. When NOT to Use Microservices
9. The 3 strategies for breaking Monolith to Microservices

Also after completing this course, you’ll be able to download the Microservices Architecture Checklist, a comprehensive checklist that will guide you through the process of designing Microservices systems, and provide a great summary of what we’ll learn in this course.

This checklist will help you in designing the best Microservices Architecture possible, will help you decide whether you should actually utilize Microservices, and, most important — will make you a better architect.

Here is the link to join this course — Microservices Architecture — The Complete Guide

2. Service-Oriented Architecture [Best Coursera Course]

This is my favorite and probably the best course to learn Service Oriented Architecture online. As I told you before it's based on an understanding of architectural styles and you will review architectures for web applications before exploring the basics of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) in two approaches: Web Services (WS*) and Representational State Transfer (REST) architecture.

The course is also part of Software Design and Architecture Specialization, on Coursera which is a recommended resource for Java developers aspiring to become software architects.

The specialization also includes a Capstone Project in which you will connect a Java-based Android application with Elasticsearch, a web service with a REST application programmer interface (API).

Here is the link to join this course — Service-Oriented Architecture

By the way, if you find Coursera courses and specialization useful then you should also join the Coursera Plus, a subscription plan from Coursera which provides you unlimited access to their most popular courses, specialization, professional certificate, and guided projects. It cost around $399/year but its complete worth your money as you get unlimited certificates

Coursera Plus | Unlimited Access to 7,000+ Online Courses

3. Microservices Software Architecture: Patterns and Techniques

This online course will teach you how to transform your monolith into organized, maintainable, and scalable services, leveraging the microservices architecture.

Created by Binary Brain on Udemy, this course will teach you how to design and implement microservice systems using the right architecture design patterns and techniques.

Here are things you will learn in this course:

1. What is Microservice Architecture? Benefits, Drawbacks, and Motivation.
2. Techniques to help you in the design, development, deployment, and monitoring of your microservice-based system
3. How to implement software architecture patterns for a distributed system to allow scalability whilst maintaining consistency
4. Identify technical challenges and common pitfalls

This is a short course with just 1 hour of video but it’s great to learn about Microservice Architecture for beginners and also provides a certificate of completion.

Here is the link to join this course — Microservices Software Architecture: Patterns and Techniques

4. Real-World SOA: Analysis and Design [Pluralsight]

This is a two-part course by Mohamad Halabi on Pluralsight which is seriously suitable for anyone who wants to understand correct SOA. These two courses take a practical approach to teach you what SOA truly is, what problem it is intended to solve when it is a fit for an organization, and how to implement it correctly.

This is the first part and it tackles both problems and it will help make you understand the business behind SOA before it jumps into technology.

First, you will learn by seeing a real-life business case, and learn about real-life problems and solutions. After that, you’ll learn about the fundamentals of SOA, including architecture, services, service types, reuse, and composition.

Finally, you’ll learn about the importance of designing a common semantic model for all SOA services. By the end of the course, you will be equipped with all the tools needed to implement the “correct SOA”.

Here is the link to join this course — Real-World SOA: Analysis and Design

By the way, you would need a Pluralsight membership to join this course which costs around $29 per month or $299 per year (14% discount). I highly recommend this subscription to all programmers as it provides instant access to more than 7000+ online courses to learn any tech skill. Alternatively, you can also use their 10-day-free-trial to watch this course for FREE.

For Individuals

5. Real-World SOA: Design and Implementation

This course is a continuation of the course ‘Real World SOA: Analysis and Design,’ or In that course, you studied SOA analysis and overall design, here you will get more details about implementation.

In this course, you will learn about the detailed design and implementation of SOA services. You will start with understanding design principles that drive the entire design effort and the structure and dynamics of services.

Then, you’ll learn the different MEPs supported by services and the management of the state, sessions, and client-service interactions.

Finally, you’ll learn the security of services, and various other topics. By the end of this course, you’ll learn all you need to know about the design and implementation of SOA.

Here is the link to join this course — Real-World SOA: Design and Implementation

6. Evolution of Microservices [FREE Udemy Course]

This is a free online course from Udemy which compares Monolith Architecture vs. Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) vs. Microservices, and that’s why I have included it in this list.

It’s a small course, but very good in understand the pros and cons of both SOA and Microservice architecture. It will help you to answers common questions about SOA and Microservice like by the end of the course, you will have a fair amount of idea on

What is wrong with Monolith look like? How the industry arrived at SOA? What are the issues with SOA? Why Microservices? Advantages of Microservices and Design considerations need to be made while adopting Microservices.

Here is the link to join this course — Evolution of Microservices

7. Microservices: Designing Highly Scalable Systems [Udemy]

This is another great course for senior developers and software architects who want to learn about Microservice architecture and want to design highly scalable systems.

Created by Sean Campbell, an experienced software engineer with 14 years of experience in software design and development, this course will teach you how to design Microservices that are robust, highly scalable, and loosely coupled. You will not only learn basics but also real-life design patterns for Microservices.

Here are things covered in this course:

1. The core principles and building blocks of Microservices Architecture
2. Microservices benefits and anti-patterns
3. Client-to-microservice communication through an API gateway
4. Event-driven communication using an event-bus
5. How distributed transactions work with Microservices
6. Containerization of microservices
7. Tools and technologies to build and manage microservices
8. How to convert a monolithic application into microservices
9. Microservices Patterns like CQRS and Saga Pattern.

After completing this course, you will have a solid knowledge of how to manage data and distributed transactions in a microservices-based system, how to secure microservices, and how microservices interact with each other through asynchronous event-driven communication while maintaining autonomy and independence.

Here is the link to join this course — Microservices: Designing Highly Scalable Systems

8. An Introduction to Microservices Principles and Concepts

If you are looking for an interactive course to learn about Microservices architecture then this text-based, interactive course from Educative is great to start with.

In this course, you’ll learn microservices in-depth and understand the reasons for and against them. Beyond that, you’ll learn about Micro and Macro architecture, strategies for migrating old systems, the role of Docker in this architecture, and technologies for implementing microservices.

There is also the second part of this course, Microservice Architecture: Practical Implementation which takes it a step further where you’ll actually learn how to implement them with various technologies.

By the end of these courses, you’ll be a microservice pro. Whether you’re a software engineer or an engineering manager, these courses will prove valuable throughout your career.

Here is the link to join this course — An Introduction to Microservices Principles and Concepts

And, if you find the Educative platform and their Grokking courses like Grokking the System Design Interview, Grokking the Object-Oriented Programming interview then consider getting an Educative Subscription which provides access to their 100+ courses in just $14.9 per month. It’s very cost-effective and great for preparing for coding interviews.

Educative Unlimited: Stay ahead of the curve

That’s all about some of the best online training courses to learn SOA or Service Oriented Architecture. Once you have background knowledge of SOA fundamentals, you can always join classes to learn more about Web Service or REST Architecture, two of SOA’s real-world implementations.

Similarly, if you know about Microservices, you can easily modify your application to take advantage of container-based architecture which is both easy to deploy and scale on Cloud.


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Thanks a lot for reading this article so far. If you like these best Microservices and Service Oriented Architecture courses, then please share them with your friends and colleagues. If you have any questions or feedback, then please drop a note.

P. S. — If you are looking for a free course to learn Java design patterns, which are also important for Software architects then you can also check out Java Design Patterns and Architecture course on Udemy. It’s also FREE.

Free Java Tutorial - Java Design Patterns and Architecture