The branch design pattern is a combination of the chained pattern and the aggregator pattern. Therefore, all scalability and availability models that apply to each of them can be used by the branch design pattern. Obviously, there are some caveats.
Following the scalability cube model, we can apply the x-axis, y-axis, and z-axis. However, the axis is used differently for each part of the pattern.
In the case of orchestrating microservices, only the y-axis and x-axis can be applied. The reason for this limitation is the fact that the orchestrator does not have any access to data other than that sent by the other microservices with which it is communicating.
When we talk about the microservices responsible for manipulating data, the subject is different. In this case, yes, all axes can be applied to provide scalability for the application.
An important point to note is that if the engineering team made the choice to use a physical component as the communication layer between...