Plugin-based, extensible ERP core

Situation

A growing team had to touch the ERP core directly for every new customer request, which meant every change required retesting the entire system. What they needed was an architecture that let them add new capabilities without destabilizing the core.

Solution

We designed an ERP core with a plugin architecture:

• A plugin system that can be loaded and unloaded at runtime (classpath-scanning based)
• Asynchronous communication between the core and plugins via a message queue (RocketMQ)
• Real-time notifications and status updates over WebSocket
• An operations interface for starting and stopping plugins from an admin panel

Results

• New features are now built as separate plugins and shipped without touching the core
• A bug in one plugin no longer affects the core system or other plugins
• The development team can respond to new customer requests in days instead of weeks
• The system was designed to eventually support third-party plugins through a marketplace-like structure