This session will begin with a short recap of how we created systems over the past 20 years, up to the current idea of building systems, using a Microservices architecture. What is a Microservices architecture and how does it differ from a Service-Oriented Architecture? Should you use traditional REST APIs to integrate services with each each other in a Microservices Architecture? Or is it better to use a more loosely-coupled protocol? Answers to these and many other questions are provided. The talk will show how a distributed log (event hub) can help to create a central, persistent history of events and what benefits we achieve from doing so. Apache Kafka is a perfect match for building such an asynchronous, loosely-coupled event-driven backbone. Events trigger processing logic, which can be implemented in a more traditional as well as in a stream processing fashion. The talk shows the difference between a request-driven and event-driven communication and answers when to use which. It highlights how a modern stream processing system can be used to hold state both internally as well as in a database and how this state can be used to further increase independence of other services, the primary goal of a Microservices architecture.