Important

You are browsing the documentation for version 4.1 of OroCommerce, OroCRM and OroPlatform, which is no longer maintained. Read version 5.1 (the latest LTS version) of the Oro documentation to get up-to-date information.

See our Release Process documentation for more information on the currently supported and upcoming releases.

Technology Stack

As any web application, Oro application generally follows a client - server architecture to deliver the web content prepared by the server-side stack to the client-side and deliver response. Oro applications rely on the number of embedded, integrated, and distributed technologies explained below.

Client Side

A client, whether it is a web-browser or a third-party application connected via the API, makes requests to the Oro application server-side to get the application content or JSON response. Information received in response from the server-side may be used:

  • By the web browser – to render or update the web page shown to the end user.

  • By the third party application – to launch data synchronization, trigger actions in the Oro applications or other integrated systems.

Web Browser

Oro applications support the following web browsers:

Out of the box, Oro Applications are mobile friendly due to the responsive and adaptive UI.

In addition to the HTTP connections, Oro applications establish websocket connections between web browsers and server side for the real-time communication (e.g. status notifications, alerts, etc.)

API Client

The architecture of the third-party application that connects to the Oro application via the API is not limited by the Oro application architecture. The API client may be implemented as a separate custom web application, custom mobile application, ERP system, ETL service, etc.

Server Side

On the server-side, the Oro application is composed of the multiple systems and elements that interact to deliver a reliable, scalable, and responsive Oro solution. They are detailed in the following sections.

Oro PHP Application

The core component, let us call it Oro PHP Application, is a modular PHP web application that leverage the Symfony framework and Doctrine ORM strengths. It interacts with the following system components:

  • Database and RDBMS

  • Web Server and PHP

  • Message Queue

  • Search Engine

Database and RDBMS

Oro application uses the database to store application data and uses Doctrine database abstraction layer (DBAL) and object-relational mapper (ORM) to interact with the database. That enables out of the box support of various databases enabled by Doctrine. On top of that, in the Oro application, Doctrine capabilities are extended with additional database functions in the Oro Doctrine Extensions library. Currently the extended functions are supported for MySQL and PostgreSQL databases only.

Supported RDBMs:

  • MySQL in CE and EE

  • PostgreSQL in EE only (for scalability)

Note

For implementation details, see Database System Component topic for more information about the database component.

Web Server and PHP

A web server is an HTTP server that manages client requests and proxies them to the Oro PHP Application. Web server may rely on the PHP-FPM to process requests to Oro PHP Application and prepare the response.

Supported web servers: Apache and Nginx

Message Queue

Oro application uses Message Queue to enable asynchronous processing for the heavy jobs that, when executed immediately, may cause performance degradation. For example, reindexation of a large volume of data, creation of large bulks of items, etc. is usually handled via MQ consumers. To process the queued messages, Oro application uses a proprietary consumer service. It is running as a daemon and handles all the asynchronous jobs (messages) registered within a Message Queue. Consumer service is scalable and can run as a parallel processes and/or on multiple servers to handle a large volume of asynchronous processes. Number of processes required depends on the server capacity. To guarantee the acceptable response time and address spikes in the server-side workload, you can scale the message processing by adding more consumer services on demand.

Supported MQ solutions:

  • Proprietary DB-based MQ in CE and EE

  • RabbitMQ in EE only (for scalability)

Note

For implementation details, see Message Queue topic for more information about the message queue component.

Search Engine

Oro application uses Search Index to enable full-text search and speed up the run-time access to the large amounts of application data.

Supported search index providers:

Note

For implementation details, see Search Index topic for more information about the search index component.

Notes on Deployment Options

For a compact and resource-efficient deployment, all systems and elements of the Oro application may be hosted on a single physical or virtual server instance. For scalable high-load deployments: Multiple instances of Oro application may be hosted on their dedicated web servers, where the load balancer directs client requests to the necessary web server. All systems and elements of the Oro application may be hosted on their own dedicated server and could be scaled separately.

Next step: Oro PHP Application Structure

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