Microservices with NodeJS

Overview

This project guides students through building an E-commerce Backend System using a Microservices Architecture. Each service is developed independently with its own responsibilities, database, and codebase. The project introduces essential backend development practices such as authentication, inter-service communication, event-driven design, containerization, and API Gateway patterns.

By the end of the project, students will have hands-on experience in building, running, and deploying scalable microservices using modern tools and NodeJS-based frameworks.

e-Commerce Web App - Development Plan (12 Episodes)

Epoch	Topic	Technologies & Concepts	Deliverables / Output
1	Introduction to Microservices & Architecture Monolith vs Microservices, service boundaries	Microservice Architecture, Service Decomposition	System architecture diagram, service definitions
2	Build the User Service (ExpressJS) Registration, login, hashing, JWT generation, MongoDB connection	ExpressJS, Mongoose, JWT, bcrypt	Functional user-service with authentication API
3	Build the Product Service (ExpressJS) CRUD products, input validation, clean folder structure	ExpressJS, MongoDB, Joi	product-service with independent CRUD API
4	Build the Order Service (ExpressJS) Save order documents, use product & user IDs internally	ExpressJS, MongoDB	order-service with basic order creation functionality
5	Notification Service using HonoJS Minimalistic logging or alert service	HonoJS, REST API	notification-service for async logs/notifications
6	Event-Driven Architecture with RabbitMQ Publish/Subscribe model, message queue communication	RabbitMQ, amqplib	Services publish and consume events asynchronously
7	JWT Authentication Across Services Token verification, middleware, role-based access control	JWT, Express Middleware	All protected routes verify JWT correctly
8	API Gateway (Custom-built) Central routing, token checking, CORS handling	ExpressJS, Gateway Pattern	A working api-gateway routing requests to services
9	Dockerize All Services Dockerfile per service, docker-compose, internal networking	Docker, Docker Compose	All services containerized and connected in one system
10	Redis Caching for Product Service GET request caching, cache invalidation on update/delete	Redis, ioredis	Cached product data with improved response time
11	Monitoring, Logging & CI/CD (Basic) Logging with Winston, health checks, CI/CD via GitHub Actions	Winston, Morgan, Healthcheck, GitHub Actions	System logs + automated test/deploy pipeline

Technologies & Libraries Used

Category	Tools & Libraries
Languages	JavaScript (ES6+), NodeJS
Frameworks	ExpressJS, HonoJS
Databases	MongoDB (via Mongoose), Redis (caching)
Authentication	JSON Web Tokens (JWT), bcrypt
Message Broker	RabbitMQ, amqplib
API Gateway	Custom Express Gateway
Containerization	Docker, Docker Compose
Logging & Monitor	Winston, Morgan, Healthcheck Routes
CI/CD	GitHub Actions
Testing (Optional)	Postman, Thunder Client

E-commerce Microservices Architecture Diagram