In the previous chapter, we successfully deployed our service to a cloud provider without having to fundamentally change our code. We used a database to store our data, and the only thing we needed to do was to point to the new location.

It's common, during the specification and development process, to have challenging problems with one or more ways of solving them. The ways, or paths, you choose throughout the development are called design patterns, as they're part of your design.

Some design patterns are more common than others. Some are well-known, others, not so much. Some are good design patterns and you should follow them. Others are bad because of the disadvantages they bring in the short or long term.

In this chapter, we're going to take a look at the importance of choosing good patterns; we will look at some common architectural patterns and review the continuous integration we followed through the entire book until we successfully deployed to the cloud.