I prefer the separation. Simplifies a lot of things. unless of course they more or less handle the same data, in which case combined would be better/faster to develop.

Wont the isolation be broken when upgrading one service, forces you to upgrade the dashboard because of the database integration?

If you don't mind making a API for each service you could use a ReST-ish implementation to manage the data transferal and manipulation from dashboard to service.

Hi Jess, Upgrading one part won't break the other as long I will create a REST api. That would be the beauty of it. So right now I have one vote for te separation with REST API communication.