Microservice Patterns Saga And Compensation

Use When

• Business workflow updates data in multiple services
• Two-phase commit is not feasible or too costly

Workflow

1. Define local transactions and compensation actions for each step.
2. Choose choreography or orchestration based on ownership and visibility needs.
3. Persist saga state and step execution history.
4. Implement idempotent command and event handlers.
5. Add timeout, retry, and dead-letter handling for stuck steps.

Pattern Selection Guide