Splitting a Monolith: The Strangler Fig

1. The Problem: The Rewrite That Never Finishes

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 fails far more often than it succeeds. 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 is always behind, because the old one keeps changing underneath it