[cphoover]

Sure that works... I think encapsulation through separate db schemas is generally sufficient. Most people don't start or end up here however. I'm not saying that RDBMS used correctly is a bad thing. I prefer multiple small postgres schemas per "data service" (what I'm calling a service that deals only with data persistence, and updating consumers about changes to data), each schema can correlate to a single resource, or smallest possible domain of the application. These services can publish notifications about updates that can be consumed by consuming downstream services.

It's my opinion micro-services, should do one thing and do them well, and the data storage that backs these services should only be concerned with the domain of that single-purpose service. It should be isolated from all other concerns.

Having a separate schema for "users" than for "messages" for example.

Where to draw those dividing lines is not always easy.