Cloud-Native Microservices for Retail: Design Patterns and Serverless Computing

This thesis explores the development of cloud-native microservices for the retail industry, focusing on the Industry Toolkit project and the implementation of a dynamic pricing Application Programming Interface (API). The research addresses the growing demand for scalable, flexible, and cost-effective solutions in the rapidly expanding global cloud services market. The project began with a "working backwards" approach, identifying key challenges faced by retailers in their current technical setups, including slow development of custom solutions, integration difficulties, or lack of cloud technology experience. The Industry Toolkit, also known as the Retail Reference Framework, was introduced as a solution to these challenges. It provides reference APIs and tools for rapid microservice development. The thesis focused on designing and implementing a Pricing Capability within this framework. Key features of the Pricing API include real-time price adjustments based on factors like demand, competition, and inventory levels, support for custom promotions, and geographical pricing. The API was developed using modern cloud technologies and deployed on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Experimental evaluation of the API showed that it largely met both functional and non-functional requirements, demonstrating good performance, cost efficiency, and scalability. While successful overall, areas for future improvement were identified. This thesis demonstrated the effectiveness of cloud-native microservices in addressing retail industry challenges.