Support product retrieval/definition via database, in `productcatalogservice`

Describe request or inquiry

• This was requested by @LukeSchlangen and @moficodes. (Mofi, Luke, please provide any more details that I might have missed.)
• Currently, the Online Boutique’s products are defined inside a products.json file inside the productcatalogservice.
• But we want to also support the ability to load this list of products from a database (e.g., in-cluster SQL database, or a database on a cloud service).
• That database would be populated by another app — not Online Boutique — which Luke and Mofi would maintain in a different repository.
• Work necessary from Online Boutique
  • add code inside productcatalogservice to read from a database (specified via environment variables) instead of the products.json file.
  • add a Kustomize Component and documentation for enabling/configuring this new feature

What purpose/environment will this feature serve?

• Luke and Mofi want to demo multiple scenarios, but this specific features requests (detailed in this GitHub issue) will help us demo:
  • two microservice-based apps sharing data.

[NimJay]

Do you have the original diagram for this image available … ?

Yes! 😃 See Google Slides here.

[LukeSchlangen]

We’re still not sure what would be the best way to integrate this “back office” application into the Microservices Demo.

I think we will have to build and test a few potential integration options. It could be a flag like the Redis cache, or it could be the responsibility of the “Back Office” Application to build on top of the existing demo, or create a branch, separate fork? I don’t think we’re at a place quite yet to have an “ask” for the existing microservices-demo repository. Definitely open to ideas!