This project demonstrates developing reasonable microservices appropriate for most ordinary blue collar IT organizations using nothing but vanilla Java EE and simple, fast deploying thin war files. The project is used as a demo for [this] (http://www.slideshare.net/reza_rahman/javaee-microservices) talk. A video for the talk can be found here.
The project is derived from the Cargo Tracker Java EE blue prints project. Although logically two separate applications that project is deliberately structured as a single war for simplicity. This project breaks the code up into two separate wars. The larger war represents the Cargo Tracker application. In microservices parlance the Cargo Tracker application is a so called monolith. The smaller war file represents the Path Finder microservice. Cargo Tracker uses the smaller Path Finder service.
This project uses GlassFish 4.1. The code can be run in any Java EE 7 capable environment. You can even run the smaller Path Finder microservice on a fat jar solution like Payara Micro. The project uses NetBeans but you can use any Maven capable IDE.
- Download this project somewhere into your file system, probably as a zip file (and extract it).
- Make sure you have JDK 8+ installed.
- Please install NetBeans 8+. Make sure to download the Java EE edition.
- Download GlassFish 4.1 from [here] (https://glassfish.java.net/download-archive.html). Make sure to download the full platform, not the web profile.
- Please unzip the zip file anywhere in your file system.
- Start NetBeans. There are two separate Maven projects in the zip you downloaded - cargo-tracker and path-finder. They are both in their own directories under the root directory. You need to open and build both projects in NetBeans.
- You now need to setup GlassFish in NetBeans. You do that by going to Services -> Servers -> Add Server -> GlassFish Server. Enter the location of the GlassFish directory. Choose the defaults in the next few screens to register GlassFish with NetBeans.
- You will need to specify that both projects will run with GlassFish. You do that by going to Project -> Properties -> Run -> Server and choosing GlassFish.
- When ready, you will first run the path-finder application (Project -> Run). Wait for the project to deploy and run. Then you will similarly run the Cargo Tracker application. In both cases, NetBeans should automatically open a browser window with the running application.
- You need to book and route a cargo. Please take a look at the video for the talk on how to do this or look through the readme of the original Cargo Tracker application. The Path Finder service is used for routing by Cargo Tracker.
- In this demo both Cargo Tracker and Path Finder run on the same GlassFish domain. If you want you can run the two wars on two different servers or two different GlassFish domains. Just make the appropriate changes in [ejb-jar.xml for Cargo Tracker] (cargo-tracker/src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/ejb-jar.xml) to point it to the location of the Path Finder service. Most servers will also allow you to change the JNDI entry value at runtime through GUI administrative tools without any changes to the war. You can also use load balancers and DNS with the two applications if you like to add greater flexibility or fault tolerance.