A Microservices Based Student Industrial Attachment Information System Model for Technical and Vocational Education and Training Institutions in Kenya

Abstract

Microservices is a software development technique-a sub type of the service oriented architecture style that structures an application as a collection of autonomous, independent and loosely coupled services that communicate using network lightweight communication protocols. Lack of a system to automate Industrial Attachment activities in TVET institutions was the driving force towards coming up with a microservices system that has the benefits of being more resilient, fault tolerant and scalable. The study used descriptive research design to identify user needs of the model. A questionnaire; an easy to use tool to widely reach the identified sample was used in data collection. Data analysis was by simple tabulation. Agile software development methodology was used to develop and implement the model because of its iterative nature and customer engagement approach. The Security service was implemented as SaaS using Okta Oauth 2.0 protocol, User Interface was implemented as a microservice using React JavaScript library, the Attachment microservice and Reports microservice were implemented using Python Django framework and Django REST framework. The model was deployed using Docker compose containers where users tested and validated it by performing assigned tasks. Locust load testing tool was used to test the performance of the system when it was scaled horizontally. The study used texts, and line charts to communicate and display the analyzed data. Testing results shows the system implemented the user functional requirements and was easy to learn & easy to use. The results confirmed that container platforms help in effectively deploying microservices to achieve scalability. Properly scaled components leads to improved system performance. The study recommends adoption of the system by TVET institutions and further study to be done on API’s management in microservices.