Microservices cluster design questions

Hi, all. Not sure if I'm in the right place for this question or not but here goes.. I'm designing a small microservices application and I've grown beyond what is reasonable to pay for using cloud servies and have been working to design a small 5 or 6 node cluster computing solution using rasberry pi modules. I have somequestions that I'm hoping you can help me with.

This is an effort at home in its infancy. Hopefully it will grow into somethign but if not, it'll help my architectural chops. So, to wit: 1. Is it better to use a POE+ hat for powering up this cluster or would you recommend another solution? 2. Would you recommend a connected nas for storage space or individual ssd's when it somes to the data and asset management layers of the app, keeping in mind that I am looking for ease of use along with sustainability in the early stages of dev?

This will be a "it depends" answer. 1. I have a small (not cluster) but a rack where I have a 5V/10A power supply feeding some Pi 3 & 4s. PoE is a bit more expensive but your cable management will be nice. So it depends on your wallet, if you can build or want to buy. 2. This can't be answered with a yes/no as it depends on the application running on each node! My rack has a SSD on each Pi and one Pi is a NAS for central storage. So it depends on the data transfer and shared storage need in your project.