Monolith Down: Cleaning Up After the Great Identity Migration Disaster

The presentation titled Monolith Down: Cleaning Up After the Great Identity Migration Disaster by Sonya Natanzon discusses the challenges and recovery strategies involved in a monolith-to-microservices migration that faced a disastrous rollout.

Key Points:

• Background: The healthcare company attempted to migrate from a monolithic architecture to microservices with a focus on integrating with a commercial identity provider. This migration process was initially expected to take 3 months but extended to 9 months due to unforeseen complexities.
• Disaster Strikes: On deployment day, system failures led to users being unable to log in or, worse, accessing incorrect data. Such failures are particularly critical in healthcare, where the portal was used by physicians to order diagnostic tests and decide treatments.
• Recovery Strategy: A dual-portal approach was implemented to ensure system availability, allowing for users to be moved between legacy and new systems as needed. This included utilizing a commercial Identity Provider to facilitate user authentication across different stacks.
• Lessons Learned: The presentation emphasizes avoiding a big bang approach, focusing instead on incremental migration, ensuring thorough understanding of existing architecture, and building a culture of trust and transparency within teams and with stakeholders.
• Outcomes: Performance improvements were noted post-recovery, with significant reductions in support tickets and downtime. The presentation concludes with advice on managing architectural migrations, focusing on proven objectives, and maintaining flexibility through techniques like running parallel systems.

This is the end of the AI-generated content.

One does not simply migrate a monolith. Imagine a team working on a monolith-to-microservices migration of a healthcare portal. A foundational first step - migrating to a commercial identity provider - takes 9 months, only to bring the entire portal crashing down on release day. Users locked out. Trust shattered. The lead gets fired. You step into the fray. Now what?

In this talk, I’ll share what it’s like to inherit an architectural initiative that already exploded - and how to turn it around without becoming the next cautionary tale. We’ll cover rollout strategies, risk mitigation tactics, and how to deliver product value while pulling the system out of the fire, restoring user trust, and rebuilding the team’s reputation. Think of it as disaster recovery - but with more debugging and fewer hazmat suits.

Key Takeaways:

• Practical strategies for stabilizing and recovering from a failed architecture rollout
• Techniques to deliver new product value while untangling legacy systems
• Tactics for regaining trust after a high-profile outage
• Lessons on phased migration planning that balance ambition with safety