ShopFlow Platform

Platform Architecture

The ShopFlow Platform represents a comprehensive cloud-native retail solution built with modern DevOps practices and production-grade infrastructure. This platform demonstrates advanced container orchestration, service mesh architecture, and automated deployment strategies that form the backbone of scalable enterprise applications.

ShopFlow delivers a complete retail experience through five specialized microservices: user authentication, product catalog management, order processing, payment handling, and customer notifications. Each service operates independently while maintaining seamless integration through carefully orchestrated communication patterns.

System Architecture

AWS EKS cluster topology showing service mesh integration, container registry flow, and traffic management

The platform leverages AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) for robust container orchestration, enhanced with Istio service mesh for intelligent traffic management and enhanced security. This architecture supports high availability, horizontal scaling, and operational observability essential for production retail environments.

Infrastructure Strategy

Cloud Infrastructure

The EKS cluster is provisioned with production-ready specifications, including multi-node deployment, autoscaling node groups, and proper resource allocation to handle variable workloads efficiently:

eksctl create cluster \
  --name shopflow-cluster \
  --region ap-south-1 \
  --nodes 3 \
  --node-type t3.medium \
  --managed

Namespace organization ensures clean separation between environments and enables sophisticated traffic policies:

kubectl create namespace shopflow-prod
kubectl label namespace shopflow-prod istio-injection=enabled

Container Strategy and Registry Management

Each microservice is containerized using optimized Docker builds that minimize image size while maximizing build efficiency. Multi-stage builds separate build dependencies from runtime requirements:

FROM node:18-alpine AS builder
WORKDIR /app
COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm ci --only=production

FROM node:18-alpine
WORKDIR /app
COPY --from=builder /app/node_modules ./node_modules
COPY . .
EXPOSE 4000
CMD ["npm", "start"]

AWS Elastic Container Registry (ECR) provides secure, private image storage with automated vulnerability scanning and lifecycle policies:

docker build -t $AWS_ACCOUNT_ID.dkr.ecr.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/shopflow-platform/auth-service:v1.0 ./services/auth-service
docker push $AWS_ACCOUNT_ID.dkr.ecr.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/shopflow-platform/auth-service:v1.0

Service Mesh Implementation

Istio 1.27 integration provides advanced traffic management capabilities, including intelligent load balancing, circuit breaking, and security policies. The service mesh architecture enables zero-trust networking and comprehensive observability without requiring application code changes.

Gateway configuration manages external traffic entry:

apiVersion: networking.istio.io/v1beta1
kind: Gateway
meta
  name: shopflow-gateway
  namespace: istio-system
spec:
  selector:
    istio: ingressgateway
  servers:
  - port:
      number: 80
      name: http
      protocol: HTTP
    hosts:
    - "*"

VirtualService resources define sophisticated routing rules:

apiVersion: networking.istio.io/v1beta1
kind: VirtualService
meta
  name: shopflow-virtualservice
  namespace: shopflow-prod
spec:
  hosts:
  - "*"
  gateways:
  - istio-system/shopflow-gateway
  http:
  - match:
    - uri:
        prefix: /auth
    route:
    - destination:
        host: user-auth
        port:
          number: 4000

CI/CD Pipeline

GitHub Actions orchestrates the entire deployment workflow with automated testing, security scanning, and zero-downtime deployments. The pipeline ensures code quality and deployment reliability through comprehensive automation.

name: Production Deployment
on:
  push:
    tags:
      - 'v*'

jobs:
  build-and-deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    strategy:
      matrix:
        service: [auth-service, catalog-api, order-mgmt, payment-api, notify-hub]
    
    steps:
      - name: Configure AWS credentials
        uses: aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials@v4
        with:
          aws-access-key-id: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
          aws-secret-access-key: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
          aws-region: ap-south-1
      
      - name: Build and push Docker image
        run: |
          docker build -t ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCOUNT_ID }}.dkr.ecr.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/shopflow-platform/${{ matrix.service }}:${{ github.ref_name }} ./services/${{ matrix.service }}
          docker push ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCOUNT_ID }}.dkr.ecr.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/shopflow-platform/${{ matrix.service }}:${{ github.ref_name }}

Engineering Challenges

Business Workflow

Testing Strategy

The testing strategy covers API endpoint functionality, service-to-service communication, and traffic routing verification through the service mesh.

# Health check validation
curl -s http://$INGRESS_HOST/products
curl -s http://$INGRESS_HOST/auth/health

# Internal service communication testing
kubectl exec -it $(kubectl get pod -n shopflow-prod -l app=user-auth -o jsonpath='{.items[0].metadata.name}') \
  -n shopflow-prod -- curl http://catalog-api:4000/health

# Service mesh validation
istioctl dashboard kiali

Performance Results

The platform demonstrates exceptional performance metrics through optimized container configurations, efficient service mesh routing, and strategic resource allocation across the Kubernetes cluster.

Future Plans

Platform evolution focuses on enhanced observability, machine learning integration, and advanced deployment strategies. Planned improvements include distributed tracing, predictive scaling, and multi-region deployment capabilities.

Technical Impact

This project demonstrates comprehensive DevOps expertise through production-ready implementation of complex cloud-native architecture. The platform showcases advanced skills in container orchestration, service mesh management, and automated deployment strategies essential for modern enterprise applications.

Key achievements include zero-downtime deployments, comprehensive monitoring integration, and scalable microservices architecture that can handle enterprise-level traffic loads while maintaining high availability and performance standards.