Uploaded December 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Are your microservices battles leaving you frustrated? Tom Akehurst (creator of WireMock) dives into the harsh reality: the promised land of decoupled services often leads to heavy interconnections, broken dev environments, and painfully slow productivity.
This InfoQ video is your blueprint for fixing the microservices decoupling problem. Learn the advanced techniques (observability, contract testing, and realistic simulation) that move you from fighting fragile environments to shipping value faster.
⏱️ Video Timestamps (For Navigation)
0:00 The Microservices Promise vs. Reality: Why Teams are Frustrated
1:30 WireMock: A Brief Introduction & Open-Source Commitment
3:15 Failed Decoupling Strategies (Gatekeeping, Full Environments, Smart Environments)
7:50 Why API Mocking/Simulation is the Answer
9:45 The 3 Biggest Objections to Mocking at Scale (Realism, Effort, Drift)
12:00 Composing the Three Artifacts: Observation, Simulation, Contract
16:45 Defining API Observability, Simulation, and Contract Testing
21:30 The AI Productivity Lever: LLMs for Mock Generation
23:25 Workflow 1: Trusting Producer-Provided Contracts
25:30 Workflow 2: Generating Your Own Contracts from Traffic
26:45 DEMO: Catching API Drift with WireMock, Optic, and Prism
30:15 The Future: Arazzo Workflows and OpenAPI Overlays
32:30 The Impact of eBPF and Service Mesh on API Observation
34:10 Conclusion: Reserving End-to-End Tests for True Integration Risk
🔗 Transcript available on InfoQ: bit.ly/3Y7jvKs
#APImocking #Microservices #SoftwareArchitecture
Are your microservices battles leaving you frustrated? Tom Akehurst (creator of WireMock) dives into the harsh reality: the promised land of decoupled services often leads to heavy interconnections, broken dev environments, and painfully slow productivity.
This InfoQ video is your blueprint for fixing the microservices decoupling problem. Learn the advanced techniques (observability, contract testing, and realistic simulation) that move you from fighting fragile environments to shipping value faster.
⏱️ Video Timestamps (For Navigation)
0:00 The Microservices Promise vs. Reality: Why Teams are Frustrated
1:30 WireMock: A Brief Introduction & Open-Source Commitment
3:15 Failed Decoupling Strategies (Gatekeeping, Full Environments, Smart Environments)
7:50 Why API Mocking/Simulation is the Answer
9:45 The 3 Biggest Objections to Mocking at Scale (Realism, Effort, Drift)
12:00 Composing the Three Artifacts: Observation, Simulation, Contract
16:45 Defining API Observability, Simulation, and Contract Testing
21:30 The AI Productivity Lever: LLMs for Mock Generation
23:25 Workflow 1: Trusting Producer-Provided Contracts
25:30 Workflow 2: Generating Your Own Contracts from Traffic
26:45 DEMO: Catching API Drift with WireMock, Optic, and Prism
30:15 The Future: Arazzo Workflows and OpenAPI Overlays
32:30 The Impact of eBPF and Service Mesh on API Observation
34:10 Conclusion: Reserving End-to-End Tests for True Integration Risk
🔗 Transcript available on InfoQ: bit.ly/3Y7jvKs
#APImocking #Microservices #SoftwareArchitecture
