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Azure Container Apps is a fully managed serverless container service that enables you to build and deploy modern, cloud-native Java applications and microservices at scale. It offers a simplified developer experience while providing the flexibility and portability of containers.

Of course, Azure Container Apps has really solid support for our ecosystem, from a number of build options, managed Java components, native metrics, dynamic logger, and quite a bit more.

To learn more about Java features on Azure Container Apps, visit the documentation page.

You can also ask questions and leave feedback on the Azure Container Apps GitHub page.

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Azure Container Apps is a fully managed serverless container service that enables you to build and deploy modern, cloud-native Java applications and microservices at scale. It offers a simplified developer experience while providing the flexibility and portability of containers.

Of course, Azure Container Apps has really solid support for our ecosystem, from a number of build options, managed Java components, native metrics, dynamic logger, and quite a bit more.

To learn more about Java features on Azure Container Apps, you can get started over on the documentation page.

And, you can also ask questions and leave feedback on the Azure Container Apps GitHub page.

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Modern software architecture is often broken. Slow delivery leads to missed opportunities, innovation is stalled due to architectural complexities, and engineering resources are exceedingly expensive.

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With Orkes Conductor managed through Orkes Cloud, developers can focus on building mission critical applications without worrying about infrastructure maintenance to meet goals and, simply put, taking new products live faster and reducing total cost of ownership.

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Modern software architecture is often broken. Slow delivery leads to missed opportunities, innovation is stalled due to architectural complexities, and engineering resources are exceedingly expensive.

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With Orkes Conductor managed through Orkes Cloud, developers can focus on building mission critical applications without worrying about infrastructure maintenance to meet goals and, simply put, taking new products live faster and reducing total cost of ownership.

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1. Introduction

Spring Boot gives us the ability to quickly setup and run services.

To enhance the development experience further, Spring released the spring-boot-devtools tool – as part of Spring Boot-1.3. This article will try to cover the benefits we can achieve using the new functionality.

We’ll cover the following topics:

  • Property defaults
  • Automatic Restart
  • Live Reload
  • Global settings
  • Remote applications

1.1. Add Spring-Boot-Devtools in a Project

Adding spring-boot-devtools in a project is as simple as adding any other spring-boot module. In an existing spring-boot project, add the following dependency:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-devtools</artifactId>
</dependency>

Do a clean build of the project, and you are now integrated with spring-boot-devtools. The newest version can be found here.

2. Property Defaults

Spring-boot does a lot of auto-configurations, including enabling caching by default to improve performance. One such example is caching of templates used by template engines, e.g. thymeleaf. But during development, it’s more important to see the changes as quickly as possible.

The default behavior of caching can be disabled for thymeleaf using the property spring.thymeleaf.cache=false in the application.properties file. We do not need to do this manually, introducing this spring-boot-devtools does this automatically for us.

3. Automatic Restart

In a typical application development environment, a developer would make some changes, build the project and deploy/start the application for new changes to take effect, or else try to leverage JRebel, etc.

Using spring-boot-devtools, this process is also automated. Whenever files change in the classpath, applications using spring-boot-devtools will cause the application to restart. The benefit of this feature is the time required to verify the changes made is considerably reduced:

19:45:44.804 ... - Included patterns for restart : []
19:45:44.809 ... - Excluded patterns for restart : [/spring-boot-starter/target/classes/, /spring-boot-autoconfigure/target/classes/, /spring-boot-starter-[\w-]+/, /spring-boot/target/classes/, /spring-boot-actuator/target/classes/, /spring-boot-devtools/target/classes/]
19:45:44.810 ... - Matching URLs for reloading : [file:/.../target/test-classes/, file:/.../target/classes/]

 :: Spring Boot ::        (v1.5.2.RELEASE)

2017-03-12 19:45:45.174  ...: Starting Application on machine with PID 7724 (<some path>\target\classes started by user in <project name>)
2017-03-12 19:45:45.175  ...: No active profile set, falling back to default profiles: default
2017-03-12 19:45:45.510  ...: Refreshing org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.AnnotationConfigEmbeddedWebApplicationContext@385c3ca3: startup date [Sun Mar 12 19:45:45 IST 2017]; root of context hierarchy

As seen in the logs, the thread that has spawned the application is not a main rather a restartedMain thread. Any changes made in the project be it a java file change will cause an automated restart of the project:

2017-03-12 19:53:46.204  ...: Closing org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.AnnotationConfigEmbeddedWebApplicationContext@385c3ca3: startup date [Sun Mar 12 19:45:45 IST 2017]; root of context hierarchy
2017-03-12 19:53:46.208  ...: Unregistering JMX-exposed beans on shutdown


 :: Spring Boot ::        (v1.5.2.RELEASE)

2017-03-12 19:53:46.587  ...: Starting Application on machine with PID 7724 (<project path>\target\classes started by user in <project name>)
2017-03-12 19:53:46.588  ...: No active profile set, falling back to default profiles: default
2017-03-12 19:53:46.591  ...: Refreshing org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.AnnotationConfigEmbeddedWebApplicationContext@acaf4a1: startup date [Sun Mar 12 19:53:46 IST 2017]; root of context hierarchy

4. Live Reload

spring-boot-devtools module includes an embedded LiveReload server that is used to trigger a browser refresh when a resource is changed.

For this to happen in the browser we need to install the LiveReload plugin one such implementation is Remote Live Reload for Chrome.

5. Global Settings

spring-boot-devtools provides a way to configure global settings that are not coupled with any application. This file is named as .spring-boot-devtools.properties and it located at $HOME.

6. Remote Applications

6.1. Remote Debugging via HTTP (Remote Debug Tunnel)

spring-boot-devtools provides out of the box remote debugging capabilities via HTTP, to have this feature it is required that spring-boot-devtools are packaged as part of the application. This can be achieved by disabling excludeDevtools configuration in the plugin in maven.

Here’s a quick sample:

<build>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            <configuration>
                <excludeDevtools>false</excludeDevtools>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>

Now for remote debugging via HTTP to work, following steps have to be taken:

  1. An application being deployed and started on the server, should be started with Remote Debugging enabled:
    -Xdebug -Xrunjdwp:server=y,transport=dt_socket,suspend=n

    As we can see, the remote debugging port is not mentioned here. Hence, java will choose a random port

  2. For the same project, open the Launch configurations, choose the following options:
    Select main class: org.springframework.boot.devtools.RemoteSpringApplication
    In program arguments, add the URL for the application, e.g. http://localhost:8080
  3. Default port for debugger via spring-boot application is 8000 and can be overridden via:
    spring.devtools.remote.debug.local-port=8010
  4. Now create a remote-debug configuration, setting up the port as 8010 as configured via properties or 8000, if sticking to defaults

Here’s what the log will look like:

  .   ____          _                                              __ _ _
 /\\ / ___'_ __ _ _(_)_ __  __ _          ___               _      \ \ \ \
( ( )\___ | '_ | '_| | '_ \/ _` |        | _ \___ _ __  ___| |_ ___ \ \ \ \
 \\/  ___)| |_)| | | | | || (_| []::::::[]   / -_) '  \/ _ \  _/ -_) ) ) ) )
  '  |____| .__|_| |_|_| |_\__, |        |_|_\___|_|_|_\___/\__\___|/ / / /
 =========|_|==============|___/===================================/_/_/_/
 :: Spring Boot Remote ::  (v1.5.2.RELEASE)

2017-03-12 22:24:11.089  ...: Starting RemoteSpringApplication v1.5.2.RELEASE on machine with PID 10476 (..\org\springframework\boot\spring-boot-devtools\1.5.2.RELEASE\spring-boot-devtools-1.5.2.RELEASE.jar started by user in project)
2017-03-12 22:24:11.097  ...: No active profile set, falling back to default profiles: default
2017-03-12 22:24:11.357  ...: Refreshing org.springframework.context.annotation.AnnotationConfigApplicationContext@11e21d0e: startup date [Sun Mar 12 22:24:11 IST 2017]; root of context hierarchy
2017-03-12 22:24:11.869  ...: The connection to http://localhost:8080 is insecure. You should use a URL starting with 'https://'.
2017-03-12 22:24:11.949  ...: LiveReload server is running on port 35729
2017-03-12 22:24:11.983  ...: Started RemoteSpringApplication in 1.24 seconds (JVM running for 1.802)
2017-03-12 22:24:34.324  ...: Remote debug connection opened

6.2. Remote Update

The remote client monitors the application classpath for changes as is done for remote restart feature. Any change in the classpath causes, the updated resource to be pushed to the remote application and a restart is triggered.

Changes are pushed when the remote client is up and running, as monitoring for changed files is only possible then.

Here’s what that looks like in the logs:

2017-03-12 22:33:11.613  INFO 1484 ...: Remote debug connection opened
2017-03-12 22:33:21.869  INFO 1484 ...: Uploaded 1 class resource

7. Conclusion

With this quick article, we have just demonstrated how we can leverage the spring-boot-devtools module to make the developer experience better and reduce the development time by automating a lot of activities.

Baeldung Pro – NPI EA (cat = Baeldung)
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Baeldung Pro comes with both absolutely No-Ads as well as finally with Dark Mode, for a clean learning experience:

>> Explore a clean Baeldung

Once the early-adopter seats are all used, the price will go up and stay at $33/year.

Partner – Microsoft – NPI EA (cat = Spring Boot)
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Azure Container Apps is a fully managed serverless container service that enables you to build and deploy modern, cloud-native Java applications and microservices at scale. It offers a simplified developer experience while providing the flexibility and portability of containers.

Of course, Azure Container Apps has really solid support for our ecosystem, from a number of build options, managed Java components, native metrics, dynamic logger, and quite a bit more.

To learn more about Java features on Azure Container Apps, visit the documentation page.

You can also ask questions and leave feedback on the Azure Container Apps GitHub page.

Partner – Orkes – NPI EA (cat = Spring)
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Modern software architecture is often broken. Slow delivery leads to missed opportunities, innovation is stalled due to architectural complexities, and engineering resources are exceedingly expensive.

Orkes is the leading workflow orchestration platform built to enable teams to transform the way they develop, connect, and deploy applications, microservices, AI agents, and more.

With Orkes Conductor managed through Orkes Cloud, developers can focus on building mission critical applications without worrying about infrastructure maintenance to meet goals and, simply put, taking new products live faster and reducing total cost of ownership.

Try a 14-Day Free Trial of Orkes Conductor today.

Partner – Orkes – NPI EA (tag = Microservices)
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Modern software architecture is often broken. Slow delivery leads to missed opportunities, innovation is stalled due to architectural complexities, and engineering resources are exceedingly expensive.

Orkes is the leading workflow orchestration platform built to enable teams to transform the way they develop, connect, and deploy applications, microservices, AI agents, and more.

With Orkes Conductor managed through Orkes Cloud, developers can focus on building mission critical applications without worrying about infrastructure maintenance to meet goals and, simply put, taking new products live faster and reducing total cost of ownership.

Try a 14-Day Free Trial of Orkes Conductor today.

eBook – HTTP Client – NPI EA (cat=HTTP Client-Side)
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The Apache HTTP Client is a very robust library, suitable for both simple and advanced use cases when testing HTTP endpoints. Check out our guide covering basic request and response handling, as well as security, cookies, timeouts, and more:

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eBook – Java Concurrency – NPI EA (cat=Java Concurrency)
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Handling concurrency in an application can be a tricky process with many potential pitfalls. A solid grasp of the fundamentals will go a long way to help minimize these issues.

Get started with understanding multi-threaded applications with our Java Concurrency guide:

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eBook – Java Streams – NPI EA (cat=Java Streams)
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Since its introduction in Java 8, the Stream API has become a staple of Java development. The basic operations like iterating, filtering, mapping sequences of elements are deceptively simple to use.

But these can also be overused and fall into some common pitfalls.

To get a better understanding on how Streams work and how to combine them with other language features, check out our guide to Java Streams:

>> Join Pro and download the eBook

eBook – Persistence – NPI EA (cat=Persistence)
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Working on getting your persistence layer right with Spring?

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Azure Container Apps is a fully managed serverless container service that enables you to build and deploy modern, cloud-native Java applications and microservices at scale. It offers a simplified developer experience while providing the flexibility and portability of containers.

Of course, Azure Container Apps has really solid support for our ecosystem, from a number of build options, managed Java components, native metrics, dynamic logger, and quite a bit more.

To learn more about Java features on Azure Container Apps, visit the documentation page.

You can also ask questions and leave feedback on the Azure Container Apps GitHub page.

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