Significant increases in the amount of data being streamed, collected, and processed have resulted in widespread adoption of the use of microservices to build scalable software applications. Unfortunately, current tools and frameworks are often insufficient at providing a simple, unified experience for the design, development, and deployment of microservices. They also have the tendency to be overly-complicated, resource intensive, and vendor-specific. This Master’s Project Report introduces Scootr Studio, the first in a class of next-generation integrated development environments (IDEs) for microservice-based applications. Scootr Studio unifies the design, development, and deployment of microservice-based applications through the use of a small set of abstractions. These abstractions create an Event-Driven Application Architecture Model (EDAAM) that minimizes hosting-provider dependence. A laboratory study showed that software developers are able to build microservice-based applications 4.4 times faster using Scootr Studio than their existing IDE of choice. These users’ experiences also illustrate how the use of Scootr Studio eliminates common errors encountered during deployment of microservice-based applications. Participants in the laboratory study also completed a usability survey, where Scootr Studio was given favorable ratings for its learnability, memorability, efficiency, and error rate reduction. These promising results serve as a starting point for creating tools that provide a simpler, more holistic development experience for agile software development teams looking to properly utilize microservices in their systems
