Practical Cloud-Native Java Development with MicroProfile: Develop and deploy scalable, resilient, and reactive cloud-native applications using MicroProfile 4.1

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.

I purchased this book on packtpub.com, not Amazon, but I couldn't find a review mechanism on that site.I bought this book because I want to learn more about using Java to make web applications/APIs. I've been using the Java language for years, but whenever I tried to learn how to use Java to actually make something and deploy it, I got overwhelmed. There's so much out there... Jakarta EE, Micronaut, and all the other stuff. It feels like if you try to learn Java development from scratch these days, everything you find online assumes you know things already, as if you've already been using Java in production for years and you just need to learn about new stuff.This book is the first one on Java development that seemed holistic. Its approach was helpful for me. It starts by explaining what makes an application cloud native and why MicroProfile helps with this. It touches on the difference between MicroProfile and Jakarta EE, and lists some example implementations like Quarkus. Throughout the book, it uses Open Liberty as an example implementation. This gave me a starting point where I could finally grok what enterprise Java was all about.It was after reading the first few chapters that I knew the basics of JAX-RS, JSON-P, and JSON-B, and had an idea of what Open Liberty was. That was when I realized I could start writing some code to learn hands on. I needed to pick a MicroProfile implementation, so I picked Open Liberty because that's what the book uses. When I read the Open Liberty documentation, I found it to be just as approachable as this book, so it was a great choice for example implementation.When I got to the section on advanced MicroProfile usage, I found the content to be a bit dry. It throws a lot of the MicroProfile spec at you, and it has a small example for each part of the spec. But it doesn't explain how to use it in a complete application. I guess the idea is that you'd consult the IBM Stock Trader application that was presented at the beginning of the book as reference, but it would have been nice to see real world examples as I go too. I feel like it would have made more sense to have the chapters introduce the parts of the spec by showing the example application being built. Without this insight as I go, this part feels more like reference material than a book. For reference material, I'd rather consult online documentation. So that's an area where the book could be improved.I haven't finished the book yet, but despite its flaws I described above, I already know I don't regret my purchase. The book is still the most approachable on enterprise Java that I've found so far. I probably won't even end up using Open Liberty in production. But I like using it as a starting point for learning MicroProfile, knowing I can move to other implementations of it later if I want to. This book was the enterprise Java resource I was looking for.

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.

If you are an experienced java/java ee developer working on cloud-native java applications then this book is for you. This book teaches you how to use Microprofile with Java EE framework to produce cloud-native applications.Authors have done a commendable job to explain what it means to be cloud-native and how to create a full-fledged cloud native java based applications.The book is divided into three sections:First section creates a landscape to help understand the fundamentals of cloud-native, microservices, distributed applications, 12 factor app, microprofile, the solo pieces of a puzzle which book beautifully pieces together to answer one being questions "what is a cloud-native app and how does java/ee/microprofile promise to create one?".Next sections delves in to the depth of microprofile specification and how it principally aligns its components to the methodologies of "12 factor app". Each component of microprofile is covered in details with concrete examples chosen from real world scenarios.This sections goes above and beyond call of duty and extends the reader's knowledge on how to deploy/operate a microprofile application on kubernetes by explaining basic building blocks of docker/kubernetes.Third and last section puts everything in action and like Authors say it in the book "This is where the rubber meets the road". The famous IBMStockTraderApplication is conceived/designed/developed and deployed on kubernetes cluster.What I Liked about the book======================My philosophy of understanding something new in java world has always been "start with specification" to understand "why I need it" and ends with documentation to know "how do I do it". This books does just that. It explains each and every concept like you are reading a specification and introduces the code snippets like a documentation to show how you do it. Authors have marvellously found the balance between theory and code. The chapters on standalone microprofile components like Microprofile ReactiveMessaging, Microprofile ContextPropogation, Microprofile GraphQL brings a completeness to the book and were delight to read.What I did not like about the book==========================I believe that book was short of explaining and showing how to achieve asynchronous/reactive applications using JAX-RS and Microprofile RestClient by showing how to pass the context from jax-rs to rest clients. While authors have tried to explain each parts in isolation, I guess they should have shown the complete working example of it since many of the components are new and readers might find it hard to visualise and code this pattern.Disclaimer : I received the free copy of the book for the evaluation and review. I have been developing cloud-native application using microprofile from 3 years.