23. What are microservices and what are their advantages?

Microservices are an architectural style in which an application is divided into small, independent services, each responsible for a specific set of functions. Microservices communicate with each other using lightweight protocols such as HTTP/REST or gRPC.

Advantages of microservices:

1. Scalability: Each service can be scaled independently, allowing for more efficient resource management.
2. Flexibility in technology choice: Each microservice can be written in a different programming language or use a different technology.
3. Faster deployment: Changes to one service do not affect the entire application, enabling faster deployments and updates.
4. Fault isolation: A failure in one service does not cause the entire system to fail, increasing reliability.
5. Increased team productivity: Teams can work in parallel on different services, speeding up application development.