Centralized Data Management For Distributed Microservices

NICHOLAS CRUM, SOFTWARE ARCHITECT

Discussion Document - Strictly Confidential & Proprietary

Agenda

What were we trying to build?

Who were we building it for?

How did we build it?

What were we trying to build?

Intro to Broadleaf CUSTOM ENTERPRISE COMMERCE SOLUTIONS SINCE 2009...

PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL 3

Partnered with

The Container

Store to develop

core framework

based on Java

and Spring

Enterprise

Edition

introduced with

24x7 Support

B2B and Multi-

site Editions

introduced

Multi-site capabilities

proven at ICON across

11 brands and 26 sites

on a single code base

Sub-second

search proven

across 300MM

search documents

Repackaged

product Editions

including

Marketplace, Multi-

Site and API

Commerce

2009 2013 2015 2016 2014 2017 2019

Microservice-based

product introduced,

proven across 650k

single day

subscriptions and

60k entitlement

requests per minute

Deep Customization | Access to Source | Rapid Development

Metadata-Driven Admins REACT IS THE FOURTH ITERATION BACKOFFICE ADMIN TECH AT BROADLEAF

PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL 3

Adobe Flex originally

used for Broadleaf’s

backend Admin console

Migrated to Google Web Toolkit

as the first metadata-driven

presentation technology

Migrated to Thymeleaf providing

better customization capabilities Migrated to React

as Single Page App

2009 2011 2013 2019

Why is this important?

🙁

Who were we building it for?

Audience

Developers Business

Business User

● Single Admin

● It Works!

● Not Interested in Technical

Developers

Backend (Java/Spring) Frontend (JS/React)

Backend Developer

● New Admin Interfaces, No

HTML

● Integrates with Existing Services

● Gradual Adoption

Frontend Developer

● Extensibility

● Component Library

● Modern Frontend Technologies

Provide a Framework to Enable Developers

How did we build it?

Client Application

● Built for Headless APIs

● Single-page Application

● Modern Frontend Stack

Metadata Service

Client Knows “How” Metadata Tells “What” and “Where”

As a Backend Developer...

Wait... What is Metadata?

Metadata V1 = JSON 🙁

● Poor Reuse

● Typos = Runtime Errors

● Hard to Understand

We Needed to Make a Change

Metadata V2 = Java DSL 🙁

● Spring Auto-Configuration

● Intuitive Builders

● Type-Checking

● Validation & Tests

● Internationalization

Who Needs Frontend Developers? 🙁

As a Frontend Developer...

Registering Components

What is the Purpose of a Component

Views Fields

Classified Metadata

● View Components

● Field Components

● And More...

Component Library

● Hundreds of Components

● Improve Velocity

● Extension Patterns

Register a Field

● Create New Fields

● Replace Existing Fields

● Simple or Complex

Register a View

● Create custom pages

● Blank Slate

● Use Metadata, or Don’t

Recap

Audience

Developers Business

● Metadata Service

● Java DSL

● Client-side Application

● Component Registrar

What We Built

Thank you!

To contact Broadleaf...

info@broadleafcommerce.com

800.282.7443

www.broadleafcommerce.com