1.2 Overview

Retailys (sometimes referred to as the Retailys System) is a modern information system built on a microservice architecture. It is primarily geared toward e-commerce and retail, yet its open architecture also makes it suitable for development and deployment of any additional functionalities or services.

We can break down the Retailys Ecosystem into:

1. Core

   • Composed of two parts: Gateway and the “semi-application” Apps.

   • Responsible for essential features such as application registration, manifest validation, public API management (API Gateway), dependency management, inter-application security, and more.

2. Datanest

   • A Retailys application that acts as a universal entity-based database system.

   • Other applications can define their own entities (tables) and fields via <datanest:section> in their manifests.

   • Datanest stores these definitions and provides an API for working with them.

3. Dashboard

   • A universal GUI for administering any application in the Retailys ecosystem.

   • Third-party applications can define how their data should appear in the Dashboard by adding a <dashboard:section> in their manifests (e.g., forms, tables, charts).

   • The Dashboard then dynamically generates the GUI using routes, canvases, controls, etc. based on their definitions.

4. Retailys Cloud

   • An optional PaaS (Platform as a Service) offered by Retailys that provides a fully configured infrastructure (web hosting, databases, load balancing, etc.) to application authors.

   • Its use is not mandatory—authors may host their applications wherever they wish.