If you work in the cloud-native ecosystem, you are probably familiar with the Google Online Boutique (formerly the GCP Microservices Demo). It is the gold standard for testing cloud-native infrastructure. It features 11 distinct microservices written in multiple languages (including Go, Java, and Python), generating a web of high-concurrency traffic and deep dependencies.
Deploying it manually usually means wrestling with a mountain of Kubernetes manifests and struggling to visualize how the services actually talk to each other.
I recently wanted to see how this demo would look inside OpenChoreo, a new CNCF Sandbox open-source developer platform for Kubernetes. I was looking for a unified way to visualize the architecture, track deployments, and manage dependencies without building a custom portal from scratch.
Here is how I deployed the entire suite using OpenChoreo, and a look at the beautiful, premium platform UI it generated.
The Setup: Zero to Platform in Minutes
The goal was to avoid spending hours configuring a control plane. I wanted a complete Internal Developer Platform (IDP) experience straight out of the box.
Step 1: The Quick Start Guide
I started with the OpenChoreo Quick Start Guide (QSG). Running the QSG locally spun up the entire foundation. Within about 10 minutes, I had the OpenChoreo Control, Data, Workflow, and Observability planes running on my cluster, complete with the Backstage-powered UI.
Step 2: Deploying the Demo Script
With the platform running, I did not have to manually translate the Google microservices into OpenChoreo components. I simply executed the provided command script specifically designed for the Google Microservice Demo deployment.
The script automatically registered the project, defined the component boundaries, and initiated the GitOps reconciliation.
Exploring the Results
Once the deployment finished, the OpenChoreo UI brought the entire microservice architecture to life. Here is what the platform gave me automatically.
- The Unified Component Catalog Instead of hunting through terminal commands to see what was running, the Overview tab provided a clean, unified catalog.
Every component (the Go-based frontend, the Java Spring Boot shipping service, the redis cache) was cataloged neatly under the "GCP Microservice Demo" project. More importantly, the UI exposed the deployment state of each component across the defined pipeline, showing clear green checks for successful deployments in the Development environment, with paths ready for Staging and Production.
- The Relationship Graph Microservices only make sense when you understand their context. OpenChoreo generated a complete system diagram mapping the exact relationships.
The graph visually links the default namespace to the GCP Microservice Demo project, and then branches out to show every single component connected to it, alongside the Default Pipeline. It provides instant clarity on ownership and system boundaries.
- The Cell Diagram (My Favorite Feature) This is where the platform truly feels like a billion-dollar enterprise tool. Managing high-concurrency backend systems requires understanding real-time traffic flows and dependencies.
The Cell Diagram automatically mapped the network interactions between the services. You can visually trace how the frontend component acts as the central hub, reaching out to checkout, currency, productcatalog, and recommendation. You can also clearly see secondary dependencies, like the cart service connecting directly to redis.
If a service goes down, this diagram is exactly what an SRE or platform engineer needs to instantly identify the blast radius.
The Takeaway
Building a platform that abstracts Kubernetes while providing deep observability usually takes organizations quarters, if not years, of dedicated engineering.
By combining the OpenChoreo QSG with the demo deployment script, I got a production-grade developer portal, automated deployment pipelines, and deep architectural mapping in minutes. It completely changes the developer experience from fighting infrastructure to purely focusing on software delivery.
If you are building an IDP or just want to see how clean Kubernetes abstractions can be, you should definitely take it for a spin.
Check out the project and give it a star: https://openchoreo.dev/
