2. Getting started
If you are just getting started with Spring Cloud Task, you should read this section. Here, we answer the basic “what?”, “how?”, and “why?” questions. We start with a gentle introduction to Spring Cloud Task. We then build a Spring Cloud Task application, discussing some core principles as we go.
2.1. Introducing Spring Cloud Task
Spring Cloud Task makes it easy to create short-lived microservices. It provides capabilities that let short lived JVM processes be executed on demand in a production environment.
2.2. System Requirements
You need to have Java installed (Java 8 or better). To build, you need to have Maven installed as well.
2.2.1. Database Requirements
Spring Cloud Task uses a relational database to store the results of an executed task. While you can begin developing a task without a database (the status of the task is logged as part of the task repository’s updates), for production environments, you want to use a supported database. Spring Cloud Task currently supports the following databases:
-
DB2
-
H2
-
HSQLDB
-
MySql
-
Oracle
-
Postgres
-
SqlServer
2.3. Developing Your First Spring Cloud Task Application
A good place to start is with a simple “Hello, World!” application, so we create the Spring Cloud Task equivalent to highlight the features of the framework. Most IDEs have good support for Apache Maven, so we use it as the build tool for this project.
The spring.io web site contains many “Getting Started ”
guides that use Spring Boot. If you need to solve a specific problem, check there first.
You can shortcut the following steps by going to the
Spring Initializr and creating a new project. Doing so
automatically generates a new project structure so that you can start coding right away.
We recommend experimenting with the Spring Initializr to become familiar with it.
|
2.3.1. Creating the Spring Task Project using Spring Initializr
Now we can create and test an application that prints Hello, World!
to the console.
To do so:
-
Visit the Spring Initialzr site.
-
Create a new Maven project with a Group name of
io.spring.demo
and an Artifact name ofhelloworld
. -
In the Dependencies text box, type
task
and then select theCloud Task
dependency. -
In the Dependencies text box, type
jdbc
and then select theJDBC
dependency. -
In the Dependencies text box, type
h2
and then select theH2
. (or your favorite database) -
Click the Generate Project button
-
-
Unzip the helloworld.zip file and import the project into your favorite IDE.
2.3.2. Writing the Code
To finish our application, we need to update the generated HelloworldApplication
with the following contents so that it launches a Task.
package io.spring.demo.helloworld;
import org.springframework.boot.CommandLineRunner;
import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
@SpringBootApplication
@EnableTask
public class HelloworldApplication {
@Bean
public CommandLineRunner commandLineRunner() {
return new HelloWorldCommandLineRunner();
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
SpringApplication.run(HelloworldApplication.class, args);
}
public static class HelloWorldCommandLineRunner implements CommandLineRunner {
@Override
public void run(String... strings) throws Exception {
System.out.println("Hello, World!");
}
}
}
While it may seem small, quite a bit is going on. For more about Spring Boot specifics, see the Spring Boot reference documentation.
Now we can open the application.properties
file in src/main/resources
.
We need to configure two properties in application.properties
:
-
application.name
: To set the application name (which is translated to the task name) -
logging.level
: To set the logging for Spring Cloud Task toDEBUG
in order to get a view of what is going on.
The following example shows how to do both:
logging.level.org.springframework.cloud.task=DEBUG
spring.application.name=helloWorld
Task Auto Configuration
When including Spring Cloud Task Starter dependency, Task auto configures all beans to bootstrap it’s functionality.
Part of this configuration registers the TaskRepository
and the infrastructure for its use.
In our demo, the TaskRepository
uses an embedded H2 database to record the results
of a task. This H2 embedded database is not a practical solution for a production environment, since
the H2 DB goes away once the task ends. However, for a quick getting-started
experience, we can use this in our example as well as echoing to the logs what is being updated
in that repository. In the Configuration section (later in this
documentation), we cover how to customize the configuration of the pieces provided by
Spring Cloud Task.
When our sample application runs, Spring Boot launches our HelloWorldCommandLineRunner
and outputs our “Hello, World!” message to standard out. The TaskLifecycleListener
records the start of the task and the end of the task in the repository.
The main method
The main method serves as the entry point to any java application. Our main method delegates to Spring Boot’s SpringApplication class.
The CommandLineRunner
Spring includes many ways to bootstrap an application’s logic. Spring Boot provides
a convenient method of doing so in an organized manner through its *Runner
interfaces
(CommandLineRunner
or ApplicationRunner
). A well behaved task can bootstrap any
logic by using one of these two runners.
The lifecycle of a task is considered from before the *Runner#run
methods are executed
to once they are all complete. Spring Boot lets an application use multiple
*Runner
implementations, as does Spring Cloud Task.
Any processing bootstrapped from mechanisms other than a CommandLineRunner or
ApplicationRunner (by using InitializingBean#afterPropertiesSet for example) is not
recorded by Spring Cloud Task.
|
2.3.3. Running the Example
At this point, our application should work. Since this application is Spring Boot-based,
we can run it from the command line by using $ mvn spring-boot:run
from the root
of our application, as shown (with its output) in the following example:
$ mvn clean spring-boot:run
....... . . .
....... . . . (Maven log output here)
....... . . .
. ____ _ __ _ _
/\\ / ___'_ __ _ _(_)_ __ __ _ \ \ \ \
( ( )\___ | '_ | '_| | '_ \/ _` | \ \ \ \
\\/ ___)| |_)| | | | | || (_| | ) ) ) )
' |____| .__|_| |_|_| |_\__, | / / / /
=========|_|==============|___/=/_/_/_/
:: Spring Boot :: (v2.0.3.RELEASE)
2018-07-23 17:44:34.426 INFO 1978 --- [ main] i.s.d.helloworld.HelloworldApplication : Starting HelloworldApplication on Glenns-MBP-2.attlocal.net with PID 1978 (/Users/glennrenfro/project/helloworld/target/classes started by glennrenfro in /Users/glennrenfro/project/helloworld)
2018-07-23 17:44:34.430 INFO 1978 --- [ main] i.s.d.helloworld.HelloworldApplication : No active profile set, falling back to default profiles: default
2018-07-23 17:44:34.472 INFO 1978 --- [ main] s.c.a.AnnotationConfigApplicationContext : Refreshing org.springframework.context.annotation.AnnotationConfigApplicationContext@1d24f32d: startup date [Mon Jul 23 17:44:34 EDT 2018]; root of context hierarchy
2018-07-23 17:44:35.280 INFO 1978 --- [ main] com.zaxxer.hikari.HikariDataSource : HikariPool-1 - Starting...
2018-07-23 17:44:35.410 INFO 1978 --- [ main] com.zaxxer.hikari.HikariDataSource : HikariPool-1 - Start completed.
2018-07-23 17:44:35.419 DEBUG 1978 --- [ main] o.s.c.t.c.SimpleTaskConfiguration : Using org.springframework.cloud.task.configuration.DefaultTaskConfigurer TaskConfigurer
2018-07-23 17:44:35.420 DEBUG 1978 --- [ main] o.s.c.t.c.DefaultTaskConfigurer : No EntityManager was found, using DataSourceTransactionManager
2018-07-23 17:44:35.522 DEBUG 1978 --- [ main] o.s.c.t.r.s.TaskRepositoryInitializer : Initializing task schema for h2 database
2018-07-23 17:44:35.525 INFO 1978 --- [ main] o.s.jdbc.datasource.init.ScriptUtils : Executing SQL script from class path resource [org/springframework/cloud/task/schema-h2.sql]
2018-07-23 17:44:35.558 INFO 1978 --- [ main] o.s.jdbc.datasource.init.ScriptUtils : Executed SQL script from class path resource [org/springframework/cloud/task/schema-h2.sql] in 33 ms.
2018-07-23 17:44:35.728 INFO 1978 --- [ main] o.s.j.e.a.AnnotationMBeanExporter : Registering beans for JMX exposure on startup
2018-07-23 17:44:35.730 INFO 1978 --- [ main] o.s.j.e.a.AnnotationMBeanExporter : Bean with name 'dataSource' has been autodetected for JMX exposure
2018-07-23 17:44:35.733 INFO 1978 --- [ main] o.s.j.e.a.AnnotationMBeanExporter : Located MBean 'dataSource': registering with JMX server as MBean [com.zaxxer.hikari:name=dataSource,type=HikariDataSource]
2018-07-23 17:44:35.738 INFO 1978 --- [ main] o.s.c.support.DefaultLifecycleProcessor : Starting beans in phase 0
2018-07-23 17:44:35.762 DEBUG 1978 --- [ main] o.s.c.t.r.support.SimpleTaskRepository : Creating: TaskExecution{executionId=0, parentExecutionId=null, exitCode=null, taskName='application', startTime=Mon Jul 23 17:44:35 EDT 2018, endTime=null, exitMessage='null', externalExecutionId='null', errorMessage='null', arguments=[]}
2018-07-23 17:44:35.772 INFO 1978 --- [ main] i.s.d.helloworld.HelloworldApplication : Started HelloworldApplication in 1.625 seconds (JVM running for 4.764)
Hello, World!
2018-07-23 17:44:35.782 DEBUG 1978 --- [ main] o.s.c.t.r.support.SimpleTaskRepository : Updating: TaskExecution with executionId=1 with the following {exitCode=0, endTime=Mon Jul 23 17:44:35 EDT 2018, exitMessage='null', errorMessage='null'}
The preceding output has three lines that of interest to us here:
-
SimpleTaskRepository
logged the creation of the entry in theTaskRepository
. -
The execution of our
CommandLineRunner
, demonstrated by the “Hello, World!” output. -
SimpleTaskRepository
logs the completion of the task in theTaskRepository
.
A simple task application can be found in the samples module of the Spring Cloud Task Project here. |