Final answer:
Adopting microservices architecture is the most effective way for the e-commerce company to address scalability and manageability issues with their legacy application, enabling efficient scaling during peak traffic events and continuous deployment.
Step-by-step explanation:
A global e-commerce company experiencing challenges with a legacy monolithic application during peak traffic could most effectively address scalability and manageability issues by adopting a microservices architecture. This architecture style breaks down the application into smaller, loosely coupled components, which can be scaled independently. Consequently, parts of the system experiencing higher demand can be scaled up without having to scale the entire application, leading to better resource utilization and response times.
While investing in more cloud technology or on-premises infrastructure might provide a temporary fix, it does not address the inherent limitations of a monolithic design. Refactoring the existing application could also be beneficial but might require substantial effort and resources. Microservices offer a more sustainable and modern solution, enabling continuous deployment of small, manageable parts that can be developed and scaled in parallel.
Moreover, microservices facilitate improved fault isolation, ensuring that a problem in one service doesn’t cause the entire application to fail during critical times like big sales events. They support the use of different technology stacks that best fit individual components, aiding in faster development cycles and innovation. This agility is crucial for e-commerce platforms that need to constantly adapt to changing market demands and customer needs.