The Quest Begins (The "Why") Picture this: I’m sipping coffee, staring at a screen full of latency spikes, and the product manager keeps asking, “Why does our API choke whenever traffic spikes?” We’d just shipped a shiny new feature, and the monolith was groaning under the load. Honestly, it felt like we were trying to fill a bathtub with a teaspoon while the faucet was wide open. I remembered a similar scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail — King Arthur’s knights shouting, “It’s j...