While Waiting for Jakarta EE

It is more than a year since Oracle announced the transfer of Java™ EE to Eclipse Foundation at JavaOne 2017. Since then, a lot has happened:

  • Java™ EE 8 API and implementation projects have been set up under EE4J.
  • The Eclipse GlassFish 5.1 release is approaching.
  • A brand new Jakarta EE specification process is right around the corner.
  • Community shows involvement regarding the technical direction of Jakarta EE.
  • The Jakarta EE NoSQL specification project proposal has been created.

This is all very good, excellent actually! When you think about the size of it all, it is actually quite an achievement. We are talking about 7.7 million lines of code! More than 60.000 files and a total of 38 new projects that have been set up at the Eclipse Foundation.

But, as everyone knows, developers are impatient and eager to try out everything new, so there are still a couple of questions that I always get when talking about Jakarta EE:

  • When can I start developing Jakarta EE applications?
  • How does Eclipse MicroProfile fit in this picture?

The answer to the first question is: “not yet”. Until the Jakarta EE specification process is finalized, the technologies are still Java™ EE. 

The answer to the second question differs a little depending on who you ask, but usually is something in the lines of “I am pretty sure that some of the MicroProfile specs will be integrated into Jakarta EE when they have proven to be useful”.

So, what should an eager developer do in the meantime? Switch to Spring Boot…ouch…or…JavaScript…squeal…?

NO, here is what you should do: Use the power of JavaEE 8 and combine it with Eclipse MicroProfile.

Many of the application server vendors have added MicroProfile features to their Java™ EE 8 compliant or certified application servers. Examples are Open Liberty, WildFly, Payara and Apache TomEE. See the respective vendor’s documentation for which versions they have included.

Java EE 8 with Eclipse MicroProfile 2.1

I have put together a simple application called Jakarta EE Duke to demonstrate how to do this. The application uses the @ConfigProperty annotation from MicroProfile Config to configure a message as well as the new @Email annotation from Bean Validation 2.0, which came with Java™ EE 8 to validate input.

While this example is extremely simple, it does indicate how you can combine the full power of Java™ EE 8 with the lightweight APIs of MicroProfile to implement cloud-native microservices using Java™ technology.

One last tip: Make sure to join the Jakarta EE Community Mailing list to always stay up-to-date on the latest development of Jakarta EE.

Running Eclipse MicroProfile on IBM Cloud

In this post, I am following up on the post series about Running Eclipse MicroProfile applications in Oracle Cloud by showing how to do it in IBM Cloud Foundry, which includes runtimes for Java, Node.js, ASP.NET Core, PHP, Python, Ruby, Swift and Go.

I am using the same simple application called CloudEE Duke as in the previous posts and will show how to deploy it in the Liberty for Java™ runtime. Since the liberty  profile is it is already configured to build using the Liberty Maven Plugin, the only thing you need to do is to activate this profile:

mvn clean package -Pliberty

See the complete pom.xml to see the complete configuration.

Since CloudEE Duke is an Eclipse MicroProfile application, you need to use the packaged server deployment option in order to activate the required features of Liberty. This is done by running the server package  command from the Liberty server directory produced by the Liberty Maven Plugin.

target/liberty/wlp/bin/server package defaultServer --include=usr

The server package  command produces a .zip file that can be pushed to IBM Cloud with the Cloud Foundry CLI as shown here:

cf push cloudee-duke -p target/liberty/wlp/usr/servers/defaultServer/defaultServer.zip

When your application is deployed, you should be able to access the hello endpoint

https://cloudee-duke.eu-gb.mybluemix.net/hello
Duke says Hello!

As ususal, you will also have the health and metrics endpoints provided by the MicroProfile implementation

https://cloudee-duke.eu-gb.mybluemix.net/health
{
outcome: “UP”,
checks: [ ]
}

https://cloudee-duke.eu-gb.mybluemix.net/metrics
# TYPE base:classloader_total_loaded_class_count counter
# HELP base:classloader_total_loaded_class_count Displays the total number of classes that have been loaded since the Java virtual machine has started execution.
base:classloader_total_loaded_class_count 10744
# TYPE base:gc_global_count counter

Run and Debug a WildFly Swarm application from NetBeans

Java EE developers using NetBeans are used to be able to run and debug their thin-war applications in their application server of choice directly from NetBeans. When developing microservices packaged as über-or hollow-jars, you expect the same effortless way of running and debugging. The good news is that you can. In this post, I show step-by-step how to run and debug the WildFly Swarm version of CloudEE Duke in NetBeans.

Run WildFly Swarm application

The easiest way of running CloudEE Duke in NetBeans is to edit the Run project action for the project. Right click on CloudEE Duke, select properties and Actions as shown below.

Configure the Execute Goals to package wildfly-swarm:run, remove all the default properties and your’re all set. Run Project (F6 ) will start the application using the WildFly Swarm Maven Plugin.

Debug WildFly Swarm Appliction

To enable debugging, you follow the same steps as described above, but in this case it is the Debug Project action you select.

Execute Goals is configured the same way as for Run, but in the Set Properties, you need to configure a debug port for WildFly Swarm. This is done by setting the swarm.debug.port property, e.g. to 9000.

Debug Project Ctrl-F5 will start the application in debug mode. Note that the execution will halt while waiting for the debugger to attach. See the screenshot below for how it will look in the log.

Select Debug->Attach Debugger from the menu in NetBeans. Change the value for Port to 9000 (or the value you chose in the previous step) and click OK.

To verify the setup, set a breakpoint at line 16 in the class HelloWorldEndpoint.

Then navigate to http://localhost:8080/hello. The execution will stop at the breakpoint at line 16 in HelloWorldEndpoint.

Running Eclipse MicroProfile on Microsoft Azure

In this post, I am following up on the post series about Running Eclipse MicroProfile applications in Oracle Cloud by showing how to do it in Microsoft Azure Web Apps for Containers.

I am using the same simple application called CloudEE Duke as in the previous posts. The only difference is that I now package the applications as Docker Images. In this example, I show how to use the fabric8 Maven Plugin to produce a docker image for WildFly Swarm.

<plugin>
    <groupId>io.fabric8</groupId>
    <artifactId>docker-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>${version.docker-maven-plugin}</version>
    <configuration>
        <images>
            <image>
                <alias>${project.artifactid}</alias>
                <name>ivargrimstad/${project.artifactId}:swarm</name>
                <build>
                    <maintainer>Ivar Grimstad (ivar.grimstad@gmail.com)</maintainer>
                    <from>jboss/base-jdk:8</from>
                    <assembly>
                        <basedir>/</basedir>
                        <inline>
                            <files>
                                <file>
                                    <source>${project.build.directory}/${project.build.finalName}-hollow-swarm.jar</source>
                                    <outputDirectory>/opt</outputDirectory>
                                </file>
                                <file>
                                    <source>${project.build.directory}/${project.build.finalName}.war</source>
                                    <outputDirectory>/opt</outputDirectory>
                                </file>
                            </files>
                        </inline>                                   
                    </assembly>       
                    <entryPoint>
                        <arg>java</arg>
                        <arg>-Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true</arg>
                        <arg>-jar</arg>
                        <arg>/opt/${project.build.finalName}-hollow-swarm.jar</arg>  
                        <arg>/opt/${project.build.finalName}.war</arg>  
                    </entryPoint>
                </build>
            </image>
        </images>
    </configuration>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <phase>package</phase>
            <goals>
                <goal>build</goal>
            </goals>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

The configuration is similar for the other Eclipse MicroProfile implementations. See the full pom.xml for examples. To produce the docker image for the WildFly Swarm implementation of CloudEE Duke, use the following command:

mvn clean package docker:build -Pswarm

Once the image is produced, you need to publish it to a container registry. In my case I simply push it to my public Docker Hub.

In order to deploy the CloudEE Duke application in Microsoft Azure, log in to your Azure Portal and create a new Web App for Containers as shown below.

Since WildFly Swarm runs on port 8080 by default (and I am using all defaults here), the port number for the application needs to be configured. This can be done either in the UI, or using Cloud Shell as shown here:

When your application is deployed, you should be able to access the hello endpoint.

https://cloudee-duke-swarm.azurewebsites.net/hello
Duke says Hello!

https://cloudee-duke-swarm.azurewebsites.net/health
{
outcome: “UP”,
checks: [ ]
}

https://cloudee-duke-swarm.azurewebsites.net/metrics
# HELP base:classloader_total_loaded_class_count Displays the total number of classes that have been loaded since the Java virtual machine has started execution.
# TYPE base:classloader_total_loaded_class_count counter
base:classloader_total_loaded_class_count 13697.0

KumuluzEE on Oracle Application Container Cloud

In this blog post, I will describe how to deploy the CloudEE Duke application packaged in a Kumuluz EE über-jar to Oracle Application Container Cloud.

The deployment artifact required for deployment in Oracle Application Container Cloud is a ZIP archive containing the application über-jar and a manifest file (manifest.json). The Kumuluz EE version of the manifest.json for CloudEE Duke is listed below.

{
    "runtime": {
        "majorVersion": "8"
    },
    "command": "java -Dkumuluzee.server.http.port=$PORT -jar cloudee-duke.jar",
    "release": {
        "version": "1.0",
        "build": "1",
        "commit": "123"
    },
    "notes": "Dukes says hello from Kumuluz EE"
}

You need to specify the port for Kumuluz EE in the startup command. This is done by using the $PORT environment variable.

The über-jar is produced by using the Kumuluz Maven Plugin:

<plugin>
    <groupId>com.kumuluz.ee</groupId>
    <artifactId>kumuluzee-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>${version.kumuluz}</version>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <id>package</id>
            <goals>
                <goal>repackage</goal>
            </goals>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

See the complete pom.xml for an example on how to produce the deployable ZIP archive with the maven command:

mvn clean package assembly:single -Pkumuluz

This will produce a file called cloudee-duke-oracle-kumuluz.zip  in the target folder. This is the ZIP archive you will deploy to Oracle Application Container Cloud as shown in the screenshot below.

When your application is deployed, you should be able to access the hello endpoint

https://<dependsonyouraccount>.oraclecloud.com/hello
Duke says Hello!

You will also have the health and metrics endpoints provided by the MicroProfile implementation

https://<dependsonyouraccount>.oraclecloud.com/health
{
outcome: “UP”,
checks: [ ]
}

https://<dependsonyouraccount>.oraclecloud.com/metrics
# TYPE base:gc_ps_mark_sweep_count counter
# HELP base:gc_ps_mark_sweep_count Displays the total number of collections that have occurred. This attribute lists -1 if the collection count is undefined for this collector.
base:gc_ps_mark_sweep_count{serviceVersion=”1.0.0″,environment=”dev”,instanceId=”110cd814-3d12-4198-80eb-694196f58993″,serviceName=”UNKNOWN”} 2
# TYPE base:classloader_total_loaded_class_count counter

Liberty on Oracle Application Container Cloud

In this blog post, I will describe how to deploy the CloudEE Duke application packaged in a Liberty über-jar to Oracle Application Container Cloud.

The deployment artifact required for deployment in Oracle Application Container Cloud is a ZIP archive containing the application über-jar and a manifest file (manifest.json). The Liberty version of the manifest.json for CloudEE Duke is listed below.

{
    "runtime": {
        "majorVersion": "8"
    },
    "command": "java -jar cloudee-duke.jar",
    "release": {
        "version": "1.0",
        "build": "1",
        "commit": "123"
    },
    "notes": "Dukes says hello from Liberty"
}

You need to specify the port for Liberty to use. This cam be done by configuring it in the server.xml using the environment variable ${env.PORT}  as shown here:

<server description="Sample Liberty server">
    <featureManager>
        <feature>microprofile-1.2</feature>
    </featureManager>

    <httpEndpoint  httpPort="${env.PORT}" 
                   httpsPort="9443"
                   id="defaultHttpEndpoint" 
                   host="*" />

    <quickStartSecurity userName="duke" userPassword="duke"/>

    <keyStore id="defaultKeyStore" password="Liberty"/>
</server>

The über-jar is produced by using a combination of the Maven Resources Plugin as well as the Liberty Maven Plugin:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-resources-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>3.0.2</version>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <id>copy-app</id>
            <phase>package</phase>
            <goals>
                <goal>copy-resources</goal>
            </goals>
            <configuration>
                <outputDirectory>${project.build.directory}/liberty/wlp/usr/servers/defaultServer/dropins</outputDirectory>
                <resources>
                    <resource>
                        <directory>${project.build.directory}</directory>
                        <includes>
                            <include>${project.build.finalName}.war</include>
                        </includes>
                    </resource>
                </resources>
            </configuration>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>
<plugin>
    <groupId>net.wasdev.wlp.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>liberty-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>2.2</version>
    <extensions>true</extensions>
    <configuration>
        <install>
            <type>webProfile7</type>
            <version>2018.+</version>
        </install>
        <configFile>${basedir}/src/main/liberty/config/server.xml</configFile>
        <serverEnv>${basedir}/src/main/liberty/config/server.env</serverEnv>
        <jvmOptionsFile>${basedir}/src/main/liberty/config/jvm.options</jvmOptionsFile>
        <packageFile>${project.build.directory}/${project.build.finalName}.jar</packageFile>
        <include>runnable</include>
    </configuration>     
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <id>install-liberty</id>
            <phase>prepare-package</phase>
            <goals>
                <goal>install-server</goal>
            </goals>
        </execution>
        <execution>
            <id>package-app</id>
            <phase>package</phase>
            <goals>
                <goal>package-server</goal>
            </goals>
        </execution>
    </executions>               
</plugin>

See the complete pom.xml for an example on how to produce the deployable ZIP archive with the maven command:

mvn clean package assembly:single -Pliberty

This will produce a file called cloudee-duke-oracle-liberty.zip  in the target folder. This is the ZIP archive you will deploy to Oracle Application Container Cloud as shown in the screenshot below.

When your application is deployed, you should be able to access the hello endpoint

https://<dependsonyouraccount>.oraclecloud.com/hello
Duke says Hello!

You will also have the health and metrics endpoints provided by the MicroProfile implementation

https://<dependsonyouraccount>.oraclecloud.com/health
{
outcome: “UP”,
checks: [ ]
}

https://<dependsonyouraccount>.oraclecloud.com/metrics
# TYPE base:classloader_total_loaded_class_count counter
# HELP base:classloader_total_loaded_class_count Displays the total number of classes that have been loaded since the Java virtual machine has started execution.
base:classloader_total_loaded_class_count 9430
# TYPE base:cpu_system_load_average gauge

 

Payara Micro on Oracle Application Container Cloud

In this blog post, I will describe how to deploy the CloudEE Duke application packaged in a Payara Micro über-jar to Oracle Application Container Cloud.

The deployment artifact required for deployment in Oracle Application Container Cloud is a ZIP archive containing the application über-jar and a manifest file (manifest.json). The Payara Micro version of the manifest.json for CloudEE Duke is listed below.

{
    "runtime": {
        "majorVersion": "8"
    },
    "command": "java -jar cloudee-duke-microbundle.jar --port $PORT",
    "release": {
        "version": "1.0",
        "build": "1",
        "commit": "123"
    },
    "notes": "Dukes says hello from Payara"
}

You need to specify the port for Payara Micro in the startup command. This is done by using the $PORT environment variable.

The über-jar is produced by using the Payara Micro Maven Plugin:

<plugin>
    <groupId>fish.payara.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>payara-micro-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>1.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <goals>
                <goal>bundle</goal>
            </goals>
        </execution>
    </executions>
    <configuration>
        <payaraVersion>${version.payara.micro}</payaraVersion>
        <autoDeployEmptyContextRoot>true</autoDeployEmptyContextRoot>
    </configuration>
</plugin>                

See the complete pom.xml for an example on how to produce the deployable ZIP archive with the maven command:

mvn clean package payara-micro:bundle assembly:single -Ppayara

This will produce a file called cloudee-duke-oracle-payara.zip  in the target folder. This is the ZIP archive you will deploy to Oracle Application Container Cloud as shown in the screenshot below.

When your application is deployed, you should be able to access the hello endpoint

https://<dependsonyouraccount>.oraclecloud.com/hello
Duke says Hello!

You will also have the health and metrics endpoints provided by the MicroProfile implementation

https://<dependsonyouraccount>.oraclecloud.com/health
{
outcome: “UP”,
checks: [ ]
}

https://<dependsonyouraccount>.oraclecloud.com/metrics
# TYPE vendor:system_cpu_load gauge
# HELP vendor:system_cpu_load Display the “recent cpu usage” for the whole system. This value is a double in the [0.0,1.0] interval. A value of 0.0 means that all CPUs were idle during the recent period of time observed, while a value of 1.0 means that all CPUs were actively running 100% of the time during the recent period being observed. All values betweens 0.0 and 1.0 are possible depending of the activities going on in the system. If the system recent cpu usage is not available, the method returns a negative value.
vendor:system_cpu_load 0.005405405405405406

WildFly Swarm on Oracle Application Container Cloud

UPDATED!

In this blog post, I will describe how to deploy the CloudEE Duke application packaged in a WildFly Swarm über-jar to Oracle Application Container Cloud.

Über-jar approach

The deployment artifact required for deployment in Oracle Application Container Cloud is a ZIP archive containing the application über-jar and a manifest file (manifest.json). The WildFly Swarm version of the manifest.json for CloudEE Duke is listed below.

{
    "runtime": {
        "majorVersion": "8"
    },
    "command": "java -Dswarm.http.port=$PORT -Dswarm.bind.address=$HOSTNAME -jar cloudee-duke-swarm.jar",
    "release": {
        "version": "1.0",
        "build": "1",
        "commit": "123"
    },
    "notes": "Dukes says hello from Swarm"
}

You need to specify the port and host for WildFly Swarm in the startup command. This is done by using the $PORT and $HOSTNAME environment variables.

The über-jar is produced by using the WildFly Swarm Maven Plugin:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.wildfly.swarm</groupId>
    <artifactId>wildfly-swarm-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>${version.wildfly.swarm}</version>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <goals>
                <goal>package</goal>
            </goals>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

Hollow-jar approach

It is also possible to package the CloudEE Duke application as a hollow-jar using the WildFly Swarm Maven Plugin:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.wildfly.swarm</groupId>
    <artifactId>wildfly-swarm-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>${version.wildfly.swarm}</version>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <goals>
                <goal>package</goal>
            </goals>
        </execution>
    </executions>
    <configuration>
        <hollow>true</hollow> <!-- Tells the plugin to produce a hollow-jar rather than a über-jar -->
    </configuration>
</plugin>

The command configuration in the manifest.json needs to be updated accordingly:

{
    "runtime": {
        "majorVersion": "8"
    },
    "command": "java -Dswarm.http.port=$PORT -Dswarm.bind.address=$HOSTNAME -jar cloudee-duke-hollow-swarm.jar cloudee-duke.war",
    "release": {
        "version": "1.0",
        "build": "1",
        "commit": "123"
    },
    "notes": "Dukes says hello from Swarm"
}

When using the hollow-jar approach, you will need to package both the hollow-jar and the application-war in the zip file together with the manifest.json file.

See the complete pom.xml for an example on how to produce the deployable ZIP archive with the maven command:

mvn clean package assembly:single -Pswarm

This will produce a file called cloudee-duke-oracle-swarm.zip  in the target folder. This is the ZIP archive you will deploy to Oracle Application Container Cloud as shown in the screenshot below.

When your application is deployed, you should be able to access the hello endpoint

https://<dependsonyouraccount>.oraclecloud.com/hello
Duke says Hello!

You will also have the health and metrics endpoints provided by the MicroProfile implementation

https://<dependsonyouraccount>.oraclecloud.com/health
{
outcome: “UP”,
checks: [ ]
}

https://<dependsonyouraccount>.oraclecloud.com/metrics
# HELP base:classloader_total_loaded_class_count Displays the total number of classes that have been loaded since the Java virtual machine has started execution.
# TYPE base:classloader_total_loaded_class_count counter
base:classloader_total_loaded_class_count 14170.0

Running Eclipse MicroProfile on Oracle Cloud

Since I joined the Oracle Developer Champions, I have played around with running MicroProfile applications on Oracle Cloud. Specifically the Oracle Application Container Cloud which allows you to run applications on platforms such as Java™ SE, Java™ EE, Node.js, PHP, Python, Ruby, .NET Core or Go.

MicroProfile is based on Java EE technologies, so the core functionality of the service will run fine on the Java™ EE platform offered. But since WebLogic does not implement the MicroProfile APIs, such as Config, Health Check, Metrics, etc., running on the Java™ SE platform is a much better option.

I have created a simple application called CloudEE Duke to show the differences in configuration required for the various MicroProfile implementations in order to run them on Oracle Application Container Cloud. So far I have covered WildFly Swarm, Payara Micro, Liberty and Kumuluz EE. More may follow. I plan to describe each of them in a series of blog posts following this one. I will update the list below with links to the posts as soon as they are written.

WildFly Swarm on Oracle Application Container Cloud
Payara Micro on Oracle Application Container Cloud
Liberty on Oracle Application Container Cloud
Kumuluz EE on Oracle Application Container Cloud

My plan is to create similar blog series for the other cloud providers as well.

Flying High with Oracle Cloud

I recently joined the Oracle Developer Champion Program, and one of the benefits is that I get free credits to try out the various services offered by Oracle Cloud. As you see in the picture below, the credits just poured down on me yesterday 🙂

Will this hurt my reputation of being unbiased and vendor neutral when I talk about technologies?

Well, I certainly hope not! In that case, it should probably have gone long time ago since I already get free credits from other vendors, such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google, and more. The way I see it, is that it is an excellent opportunity to try out the different solutions and give them a fair comparison.

Stay tuned for more…