Contain Your Spring

Although Java originally promised to write once, run anywhere, it failed to fully deliver on that promise. As developers, we can develop, test, and build our applications into WAR or executable JAR files and then toss them over the wall to a Java application server and Java runtime that we have no control over, giving us zero confidence that the application will behave the same as when we tested it.

Containers fulfill the write-once, run anywhere promise that Java wasn't able to, by packaging the runtime and even the operating system along with our application, giving greater control and confidence that the application will function the same anywhere it is run. Additionally, containers afford several other benefits, including easy scaling, efficiency in terms of resource utilization, and security by isolating containers from their host system and from other containers.

While deploying Spring applications in containers has always been possible, Spring Boot 2.3 makes it easier to containerize our applications and run them in container architectures such as Kubernetes. Spring Boot 2.3's support for containerization includes two options: Creating containers based on buildpacks or using layers as a means of modularizing and reducing the size of our application deployments. Moreover, new components in the Spring ecosystem can make your Spring applications Kubernetes-savvy so that they can take advantage of what a containerized architecture has to offer.

In this hands-on workshop, learn how to build Spring applications that can be deployed as containers in a Kubernetes cluster. You'll not only build your Spring application as an image that can be deployed in Kubernetes, but you'll also learn how to take advantage of Spring's first-class support for container-based applications, including graceful shutdown, liveness and readiness probes, and ConfigMap-based property sources.

About Craig Walls

Craig Walls is a Principal Engineer, Java Champion, Alexa Champion, and the author of Spring AI in Action, Spring in Action, and Build Talking Apps. He's a zealous promoter of the Spring Framework, speaking frequently at local user groups and conferences and writing about Spring. When he's not slinging code, Craig is planning his next trip to Disney World or Disneyland and spending as much time as he can with his wife, two daughters, 1 bird and 2 dogs.

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