Practical Cloud-Native Java Development with MicroProfile

MicroProfile has grown to be a very capable set of standard API for doing cloud-native Java applications. A book like this is long overdue. This book has been authored by people heavily influential in the development of MicroProfile, both in terms of specifications as well as implementations. Needless to say, they know what they're talking about.The scope and structure of the book is well thought out. In the early chapters, it level-sets on the whole concept of cloud-native (this is necessary, because it's not a particularly well-defined term and so having a common perspective as you read is really helpful). Each of the chapters includes many useful code examples and all the code is available in a public git repository.The book gives a high-level overview of the history of MicroProfile and the roles of different specifications in relation to cloud-native. This is a helpful level-set before getting into the meat of things. It also introduces a comprehensive sample application demonstrating the concepts and technologies in a way that is closer to real-world than you tend to find in most books of this type.What follows is a deep-dive into the MicroProfile Platform from a developer and operations perspective. It starts with details on developing and consuming RESTful services. It then moves on to the more advanced topics of fault tolerance, publishing APIs, securing APIs and injecting configuration. Lastly it moves on to observability, covering the creation of health endpoints, producing metrics and tracing requests, all essential for observing and acting upon the health of your cloud-native applications. In subsequent chapters, the authors broaden out from MicroProfile to discuss where it fits within the context of the cloud-native technology ecosystem, covering Docker (Containers), Kubernetes and Service Mesh. There's also an all-too-important section on building and testing, and details on day-2 operations, the latter going into the role of Kubernetes operators, with examples shown in the popular OpenShift platform.Finally, the book takes a look at the MicroProfile standalone specifications (capabilities that are not part of the core platform). These include developing reactive applications, GraphQL for query-based services, and Long-running Actions for Saga-based transactions (an approach to coordinating updates across microservices where it is inappropriate to use distributed two-phase commit transactions).Overall, the depth of experience of the authors shines through in this book. The examples are detailed and will prove very helpful for anyone looking to create cloud-native applications with MicroProfile.

Year after year many enterprise companies are struggling to embrace Cloud Native practices that we tend to denominate as Microservices, however Microservices is a metapattern that needs to follow a well defined approach, like:- (We aim for) reactive systems- (Hence we need a methodology like) 12 Cloud Native factors- (Implementing) well-known design patterns- (Dividing the system by using) Domain Driven Design- (Implementing microservices via) Microservices chassis and/or service mesh- (Achieving deployments by) Containers orchestrationMany of these concepts require a considerable amount of context, but some books, tutorials, conferences and YouTube videos tend to focus on specific niche information, making difficult to have a "cold start" in the microservices space if you have been developing regular/monolithic software. For me, that's the best thing about this book, it provides a holistic view to understand microservices with Java and MicroProfile for "cold starter developers".## About the bookUsing a software architect perspective, MicroProfile could be defined as a set of specifications (APIs) that many microservices chassis implement in order to solve common microservices problems through patterns, lessons learned from well known Java libraries, and proposals for collaboration between Java Enterprise vendors.Subsequently if you think that it sounds a lot like Java EE, that's right, it's the same spirit but on the microservices space with participation for many vendors, including vendors from the Java EE space -e.g. Red Hat, IBM, Apache, Payara-.The main value of this book is the willingness to go beyond the APIs, providing four structured sections that have different writing styles, for instance:- Section 1: Cloud Native Applications - Written as a didactical resource to learn fundamentals of distributed systems with Cloud Native approach- Section 2: MicroProfile Deep Dive - Written as a reference book with code snippets to understand the motivation, functionality and specific details in MicroProfile APIs and the relation between this APIs and common Microservices patterns -e.g. Remote procedure invocation, Health Check APIs, Externalized configuration-- Section 3: End-to-End Project Using MicroProfile - Written as a narrative workshop with source code already available, to understand the development and deployment process of Cloud Native applications with MicroProfile- Section 4: The standalone specifications - Written as a reference book with code snippets, it describes the development of newer specs that could be included in future under MicroProfile's umbrella## Things that could be improvedAs any review this is the most difficult section to write, but I think that a second edition should:- Extend the CDI section due its foundational status- Switch the order of the Stock Tracer presentation- Extend the data consistency discussión -e.g. CQRS, Event Sourcing-, hopefully with advances from LRAThe last item is mostly a wish since I'm always in the need for better ways to integrate this common practices with buses like Kafka or Camel using MicroProfile. I know that some implementations -e.g. Helidon, Quarkus- already have extensions for Kafka or Camel, but the data consistency is an entire discussion about patterns, tools and best practices.## Who should read this book?- Java developers with strong SE foundations and familiarity with the enterprise space (Spring/Java EE)

I might be a little biased because of my close relationship with both MicroProfile and Open Liberty, but this book would be an excellent addition to your Enterprise Java bookshelf! When I am in the market for a book on a technical topic, I look for numerous specific coding and deployment examples. This book has many code snippets, deployment scripts, and references to GitHub repositories that contain everything documented through out the book.If you are generally familiar with MicroProfile and its history, then I'd skip chapters 1-2 and jump directly to chapter 3, which gives an overview of the Stock Trader application which is used through out the book. If you want to continue to get your feet wet with technology, then skip to Chapter 8 which further explains how to build and test the Stock Trader application using Open Liberty’s implementation of MicroProfile. At this point, you’ll have a solid understanding of the Stock Trader Application.After experimenting with Stock Trader, you could go back and read through the chapters that outline the various technologies that make up the MicroProfile Platform. Chapter 4 focuses on the key technologies of MicroProfile -- JAX-RS, CDI, JSONB, JSONP, and Rest Client. Chapter 5 expands on that foundation by explaining the Config, Fault Tolerance, OpenAPI (documentation), and JWT (security) technologies. And, to finish off this MicroProfile description, chapter 6 documents the monitoring features -- Health, Metrics, and OpenTracing.Chapter 9 goes beyond the basic deployment scenarios which most books focus on. More advanced deployments with composite operators and OpenShift are explored and explained. My own experience with OpenShift is limited, so this chapter was very helpful with understanding the intricacies of deploying Stock Trader and then maintaining that deployment with Day 2 operations.The last section (chapters 10, 11, and 12) explores the MicroProfile components beyond the Platform. In addition, some thoughts are explored about the future direction of MicroProfile.This is an excellent technical reference for MicroProfile specifications and Open Liberty’s implementation of MicroProfile.. All of the authors are experts in their respective fields and the writing shows their technical expertise. I would recommend this book for anyone looking to expand their knowledge of MicroProfile.

I work daily in the MicroProfile community, and closely with some of the authors. They have deep MicroProfile knowledge and experience. This book covers quite a bit of ground with a natural progression from a high-level introduction to developing with MicroProfile platform specifications (and Jakarta EE APIs required by MicroProfile), to "Day 2" operations, to standalone specifications and the future of MicroProfile.The domain model used to demonstrate MicroProfile APIs is the IBM Stock Trader application. It is a rich model that encompasses a lot of functionality through many services. Some of the services available to the Stock Trader are optional, which is good for focusing on the MicroProfile aspects. However, those services can be used in areas of personal interest for a deeper dive.Being more recent, this book covers some of the newer specifications like MicroProfile GraphQL and MicroProfile LRA (Long Running Actions). It also covers other "standalone" specifications like MicroProfile Reactive Messaging and MicroProfile Context Propagation. While not all of these specifications are used in the context of Stock Trader, the specification coverage is pretty complete.I definitely recommend this book, especially if you are interested in combining the breadth of Jakarta EE APIs with MicroProfile APIs.

I am 25+ years in IT, building large scale business solutions in C++. Java, JavaScript and Python, and was looking for a book that gives me the "full picture" on how to develop containerized solutions in a lean and standardized way with Java. This book fully met my expectations."Phew, 403 pages are a lot" I though when first opening the e-book. Thanks to the clear structure, it's good to read piece by piece:I directly jumped to chapter 2 "MicroProfile Fit & Cloud-Native Application Development". Just 17 pages. I learned about the MicroProfile maturity and the choice of 11 runtine environements (aka application servers) and the MicroProfile starten. Nice job!Section 2 (chapters 4-7) is the core of what I needed: The MicroProfile specs (JAX-RS, JSON-B/P, RESTful, CDI, Config, Fault Tolerance, OpenAPI, JWT, Health, Metrics, Tracing) are explained one by one.Section 3 (chapters 8+9) show and end-to-end example.Section 4 (chapters 10-12) covers advanced topics and future direction: Context propagation, reactive messaging, GraphQL and more.I fully recommend the book to others who want a well structured introduction into a very relevant standard.