Architectural Decomposition Strategies for Migrating Legacy Java EE Monoliths to Cloud‑Native Microservices
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Abstract
This paper presents a structured technical roadmap for decomposing legacy Java EE monoliths into independently deployable, cloud native microservices. The modernization effort focuses on enterprise applications built on JSPs, Servlets, Struts 2.0, EJBs, MDBs, Axis based SOAP services, and iBATIS driven persistence layers. These systems typically rely on tightly coupled modules, shared state, and synchronous communication patterns that limit scalability and operational resilience. The proposed approach outlines the architectural refactoring required to migrate these components into a Kubernetes containerized environment. Objectives include the replacement of point to point and JTA-based two-phase commit workflows, the transformation of MDB based asynchronous logic into Kafka consumer services, the evolution of Axis SOAP endpoints into RESTful interfaces, and the transition from shared schema iBATIS implementations to decentralized, database-per-service designs. The resulting framework provides a repeatable methodology for reducing architectural debt, improving throughput, and supporting compliant processing in regulated domains such as financial services.
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