Enterprise ERP systems still rely on large monoliths that bind finance, HR, reporting, and operations to a single codebase and database. That structure slows releases, widens regression risk, and spreads failures across unrelated functions. This review synthesizes recent research on migrating to a modular microservices architecture, with attention to migration sequence, service decomposition, data ownership, and post-migration control. The source base comprises 10 peer-reviewed publications from 2021 to 2025, including systematic reviews, literature reviews, case studies, and a peer-reviewed conference paper. Comparative source analysis, conceptual synthesis, typologization, and analytical generalization were used. The reviewed literature converges on four conditions of stable migration: phased transition, business-aligned bounded contexts, explicit persistence boundaries, and runtime control through observability and testing. On that basis, the article formulates a decision model for enterprise teams that need to modernize large business systems while preserving operational continuity, data reliability, and manageable coordination costs.

monolithic architecture, microservices migration, enterprise applications, ERP modernization, bounded contexts, database per service, observability, microservices testing, architectural anti-patterns, legacy modernization

Cerny, T., Abdelfattah, A. S., Al Maruf, A., Janes, A., & Taibi, D. (2023). Catalog and detection techniques of microservice anti-patterns and bad smells: A tertiary study. Journal of Systems and Software, 206, 111829. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2023.111829

Fávero, L. F., Almeida, N. R. de, & Affonso, F. J. (2025). A systematic mapping study on the modernization of legacy systems to microservice architecture. Applied System Innovation, 8(4), 86. https://doi.org/10.3390/asi8040086

Faustino, D., Gonçalves, N. R., Portela, M., & Rito Silva, A. (2024). Stepwise migration of a monolith to a microservice architecture: Performance and migration effort evaluation. Performance Evaluation, 164, 102411. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.peva.2024.102411

Gomes, F. A. A., Rego, P. A. L., & Trinta, F. A. M. (2025). A systematic mapping study on observability of microservices-based applications: fundamentals, classifications, and challenges. Computing, 107(9), 183. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00607-025-01540-w

Hui, M., Wang, L., Li, H., Yang, R., Song, Y., Zhuang, H., Cui, D., & Li, Q. (2025). Unveiling the microservices testing methods, challenges, solutions, and gaps: A systematic mapping study. Journal of Systems and Software, 220, 112232. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2024.112232

Kazanavičius, J., Mažeika, D., & Kalibatienė, D. (2022). An approach to migrate a monolith database into multi-model polyglot persistence based on microservice architecture: A case study for mainframe database. Applied Sciences, 12(12), 6189. https://doi.org/10.3390/app12126189

Martínez Saucedo, A., Rodríguez, G., Rocha, F. G., & dos Santos, R. P. (2025). Migration of monolithic systems to microservices: A systematic mapping study. Information and Software Technology, 177, 107590. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2024.107590

Mohottige, T. I., Polyvyanyy, A., Fidge, C., Buyya, R., & Barros, A. (2025). Reengineering software systems into microservices: State-of-the-art and future directions. Information and Software Technology, 183, 107732. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2025.107732

Ng, T., Bin Rawi, A. A., Sum, C. S., Tso, E., Yau, P. C. Y., & Wong, D. (2024). Migrating from monolithic to microservices with a hybrid database design architecture. In Proceedings of the 2024 9th International Conference on Intelligent Information Technology (pp. 536–541). ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3654522.3654602

Sellami, K., Ouni, A., Saied, M. A., Bouktif, S., & Mkaouer, M. W. (2022). Improving microservices extraction using evolutionary search. Information and Software Technology, 151, 106996. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2022.106996