Now that you have understood what is Synchronous and Asynchronous communication in Microservice architecture, you can easily answer this question. But for your convenience, here are the key differences between synchronous and asynchronous communication patterns in microservices are:
1. Request-Response vs. Fire-and-Forget
In synchronous communication, the client making a request to a microservice waits for an immediate response before proceeding, while in asynchronous communication, the client does not wait for a response and continues its execution.
2.Blocking vs. Non-blocking:
Synchronous communication blocks the client until a response is received, whereas asynchronous communication allows the client to continue its execution without blocking, as the microservice processes the request independently.
3. Immediate vs. Delayed Response
Synchronous communication provides an immediate response, while asynchronous communication may have a delayed response, as the microservice processes the request and sends the response later, either as a callback or through a separate channel.
4. Coupling vs. Decoupling
Synchronous communication can introduce tight coupling between microservices, as they need to be available and respond immediately to each other’s requests. In contrast, asynchronous communication allows for loose coupling, as microservices can operate independently and asynchronously process requests.
5. Scalability and Fault Tolerance
Asynchronous communication can improve system scalability, as microservices can process requests in parallel, and failures in one microservice do not necessarily impact the immediate response to the client. Synchronous communication, on the other hand, may require additional resources to handle multiple concurrent requests and may be more prone to cascading failures.
6. Complexity
Asynchronous communication can introduce complexities such as eventual consistency, message ordering, and error handling, as messages or events may be processed out of order or lost. Synchronous communication, on the other hand, is relatively simpler as it provides immediate responses and does not require additional mechanisms for message handling.