Explain the concept of graceful degradation in microservices.

Graceful degradation is a strategy where, instead of failing completely, the system reduces

functionality or serves a simplified version of its features when certain services or

components fail.

Implementation:

• Fallbacks: When a microservice is unavailable, provide limited functionality or a

static response (e.g., showing a cached product listing instead of live data).

• Feature Flags: Use feature flags to selectively disable certain features without taking

down the entire service.

• Service Degradation: Prioritize critical services and allow less important services to

degrade. For instance, if the User Service is down, show a static user profile page

with cached data.

Example: A Video Streaming Service could show previously loaded content (e.g., most

recent videos) if a service responsible for fetching new video content fails.