A lightweight database-management system (DBMS) is based on a dynamic microservices architecture that implements each granular DBMS feature or function as a distinct, independently executable microservice. The DBMS's Parser front-end responds to each incoming query by selecting the first bind-time database feature needed to process the query. The Parser forwards its selection through a Channel-Binding subsystem to an Event Services Activation subsystem that activates a corresponding microservice to perform the selected feature. The first feature then selects the next required bind-time feature for activation, and this process continues sequentially until all required bind-time microservices have been identified, activated, and run. Runtime query-processing features are then sequentially selected in a similar manner. However, each selected runtime microservice is preloaded but not run. Only when all runtime functions have been identified does the Parser send an asynchronous message to the Channel-Binding subsystem directing the DBMS engine to run the preloaded runtime microservices.