Disclaimer

I hope I am not stepping on anyone's toes or offending either concepts' enthusiasts

Background

I have been looking for real differences between Service Oriented Architecture and Microservices, without finding any clear answer.

I read things like:

• the side effects of SOA
• SOA being anti-pattern
• Microservices came to fix SOA's failures
• ESBs are not really ESBs instead they are EAIs
• Over-reliance on Message Brokers
• Vendors are abusing the notion of SOA and trying to sell their products
• SOA grows uncontrollably

But still, nothing clearly defines architectural differences between Service Oriented Architecture (as a concept) and Microservices (as a concept)

According to what I understood, they both have:

• Service Providers, doing only one thing
• Service Gateway/ESB exposing those services to consumers
• Service Consumers, accessing services via ESB/Service Gateway

Question

So, is there anything different other than relabeling SOA into Microservices? is it a technology constraint placed to limit Microservices from becoming macro?

Note: I am not looking for opinions, only hard facts, hopefully in bullet points

References

• Software Engineering Questions
• Martin Fowler's Site (I think he hates it big time)
• Info world
• Michael Fethers' Website