The microservice architectural style is now one of the most talked about topics in software architecture. Large organisations are using them to deliver value into production faster than ever before. But what actually are they? What do they look like? Why should you use them?

'They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care; They pursued it with forks and hope;'

In this keynote, James will take you on a journey to hunt down the snark - what he finds may surprise you.

James Lewis studied Astrophysics in the 90’s but got sick of programming in Fortran. As a member of the ThoughtWorks Technical Advisory Board, the group that creates the Technology Radar, he contributes to industry adoption of open source and other tools, techniques, platforms and languages. For the last few years he has been working as a coding architect on projects built using microservices; exploring new patterns and ways of working as he goes. James has spoken at many international conferences. His previous topics range from domain driven design, SOA and the future of the web to agile adoption patterns and lean thinking. He’s also heavily involved in the fledgling microservice community. He rather likes the fact that he got to describe his take on things jointly with Martin Fowler in a paper that is influencing how people see the future of software architecture. Follow him @boicy