Describe an architecture for a scalable microservices application. What key components would you include to ensure reliability and maintainability?

LeetCode #200 - Number of Islands: Given a 2D grid of '1's (land) and '0's (water), count the number of islands. An island is surrounded by water and is formed by connecting adjacent lands horizontally or vertically. You may assume all four edges of the grid are all surrounded by water. ### Input - A 2D grid represented as a list of lists. ### Output - An integer representing the number of islands. ### Example Input: [[1,1,0,0,0], [1,1,0,0,0], [0,0,1,0,0], [0,0,0,1,1]] Output: 3 ### Constraints - 0 <= grid.length, grid[i].length <= 300

Describe a time when you had to optimize a backend service that was performing poorly. What steps did you take to analyze and resolve the issue?