Splitting a Monolith: The Strangler Fig

1. The Problem: The Rewrite That Never Lands

Your company decides the monolith must become services. The tempting plan is the big rewrite. You build the new system next to the old one, then switch over in one move. That switch-over moment is called the cutover.

This plan has a dismal record in practice, and interviewers know it. Here is why. The rewrite takes a year or two, and the business does not stop during that time. Every new feature must be built twice, once in each system, or frozen.

The new system chases a moving target, because the old one keeps changing underneath it