Adopting SOA and microservices for inter-enterprise architecture in SME communities

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) face an overwhelming challenge in a highly competitive market due to their resource limitations. One potential solution exists in the form of cooperation in an inter-enterprise ICT-based system. This paper proposes a service-based architecture for a collaborative SME community system framework. The proposal considers common issues in SMEs and SME-networks, and then it adopts features from both service-oriented architecture (SOA) and microservices architecture (MSA) for the design. The result is reflected in the framework's goals, principles, strategy, and architectural model. Apart from SOA's strong integration capability and MSA's agility feature, the proposed architecture also offers simplicity, particularly in the community member endpoints.