What are the primary components of a microservices architecture, and how do they enable modular, scalable application development?

Microservices architecture decomposes monolithic applications into small, independent services that are loosely coupled, independently deployable, and focused on specific business capabilities. Key components of microservices architecture include service discovery, API gateways, containerization (e.g., Docker), orchestration (e.g., Kubernetes), event-driven communication, and decentralized data management. By decoupling services and enabling polyglot development, microservices architecture promotes modularity, scalability, agility, and fault tolerance in application development.