Why Microservices?

You might be asking yourself, why do I keep hearing about microservices? You might also be thinking about how they fit into store solutions. Microservices are really all about small discrete services that can be managed, deployed, and updated independently. They also tend to support splitting them up among multiple teams. So, if that’s what Microservices are, then what’s the point? There better be a benefit, otherwise, it’s just another buzzword. We leverage microservices in JumpMind Commerce for one main reason, flexibility. This presents itself in the following ways:

Scaling

In JumpMind Commerce, our microservices are discrete and completely standalone, so they can be isolated and scaled when needed. Let’s say during the holidays you notice that the promotion service is getting hit hard by both stores and web traffic. That service could be segregated with its own data source and given its own cloud instance. 

Multi-Cloud

Our microservices can be used across all channels which enables you to have one promotion and pricing engine across all customer touchpoints including eCommerce, stores, and Call Center. These different services might live in different clouds. With JumpMind Commerce, we are cloud-agnostic and can support deploying microservices independently into a multi-cloud environment. 

Single Instance

JumpMind Commerce POS provides for fully thin deployments where all the microservices live in the cloud and a user would leverage the thin web application over a store network or LTE. Those microservices in the cloud are not store-specific so you can deploy one set of services for all stores or break them up regionally. 

Updates

The microservices in JumpMind Commerce are decoupled and can be updated independently. This allows you to really only change what’s actually changed. Giving your business an increased time to benefit by being able to rapidly deploy new functionality and updates. Additionally, this lowers the risk when pushing changes to the stores. 

Omnichannel Business Logic

Our architecture enables a retailer to leverage individual microservices and the corresponding business logic across all channels. Traditionally, the store and eCommerce channels leverage different promotion execution engines. With JumpMind Commerce Promotion Service, one set of business logic can be used for stores, eCommerce, Call Center, and even digital assistants, to ensure a consistent customer experience. 

We’ve architected JumpMind Commerce to provide the flexibility needed in today’s store and eCommerce environments. Using a modern microservices framework, you can quickly deploy new features, scale as the business changes, and leverage multi-cloud for a consistent execution of business logic.