In a world where distributed systems are becoming the norm and monoliths the exception, one of the important architectural decisions to make is around the mechanics of inter-service communication. This article explores the challenges of synchronous communication and the decision points involved in choosing between event notifications and event-carried state transfer. As Arvind Balachandran, an architect, designer, and doer, explains, these two approaches have different benefits and trade-offs that should be carefully evaluated. With this information, your organization can make an informed choice that meets the requirements of your system, whether that be scalability, reliability or maintainability.
