Since version 5.1.0 of Imixs-Workflow we introduced Apache Solr as an alternative to our Apache Lucene Core search engine. The goal is to use Apache Solr as a cloud service and control the search engine completely via the Rest API.
Continue reading “Apache Solr – The Rest API”Cassandra and Docker-Swarm
Running a Apache Cassandra Cluster with Docker-Swarm is quite easy using the official Docker Image. Docker-Swarm allows you to setup several docker worker nodes running on different hardware or virtual servers. Take a look at my example docker-compose.yml file:
version: "3.2"
networks:
cluster_net:
external:
name: cassandra-net
services:
################################################################
# The Casandra cluster
# - cassandra-node1
################################################################
cassandra-001:
image: cassandra:3.11
environment:
CASSANDRA_BROADCAST_ADDRESS: "cassandra-001"
deploy:
restart_policy:
condition: on-failure
max_attempts: 3
window: 120s
placement:
constraints:
- node.hostname == node-001
volumes:
- /mnt/cassandra:/var/lib/cassandra
networks:
- cluster_net
################################################################
# The Casandra cluster
# - cassandra-node2
################################################################
cassandra-002:
image: cassandra:3.11
environment:
CASSANDRA_BROADCAST_ADDRESS: "cassandra-002"
CASSANDRA_SEEDS: "cassandra-001"
deploy:
restart_policy:
condition: on-failure
max_attempts: 3
window: 120s
placement:
constraints:
- node.hostname == node-002
volumes:
- /mnt/cassandra:/var/lib/cassandra
networks:
- cluster_net
I am running each cassandra service on a specific host within my docker-swarm. We can not use the build-in scaling feature of docker-swarm because we need to define a separate data volume for each service. See the section ‘volumes’.
The other important part are the two environment variables ‘CASSANDRA_BROADCAST_ADDRESS’ and ‘CASSANDRA_SEEDS’.
‘CASSANDRA_BROADCAST_ADDRESS’ defines a container name for each cassandra node within the cassandra cluster. This name matches the service name. As both services run in the same network ‘cluster_net’ the both cassandara nodes find each user via the service name.
The second environment ‘CASSANDRA_SEEDS’ defines the seed node which need to be defined for the second service only. This is necessary even if a cassandra cluster is ‘master-less’.
That’s is!
JSF Best Practice
I do developing with Java Server Pages (JSF) since the early beginning with version 1.0. Today , 17 years later, we have version 2.3 and thus a lot of improvements and new features. I’ve made many mistakes in using this standard web framework in my own applications. And therefore I would like to show some best practice rules in this Blog. And I hope this will simplify the work with JSF – for you and also for me – during refactoring my own applications. Most of which I write here comes from the great book ‘ The Definitive Guide to JSF in Java EE 8’ written by Bauke Scholtz (BalusC) and Arjan Tijms. I recommend you to buy this book if you have had already made experience with JSF. So let’s start…
Continue reading “JSF Best Practice”Manage Big Data With Apache Cassandra
In this article, I will share my experience with Cassandra and how you can manage big data in an effective way. Apache Cassandra is a high-performance, extremely scalable, fault-tolerant (i.e., no single point of failure), distributed non-relational database solution. But Cassandra differs from SQL and RDBMS in some important aspects. If, like me, you come from the world of SQL databases, it’s hard to understand Cassandra’s data concept. It took me several weeks to do so. So let’s see what is the difference. Continue reading “Manage Big Data With Apache Cassandra”
An Alternative to Kubernetes
Kubernetes is an container-orchestration system which helps you to automate your deployment, scaling and management of containerized applications. Originally this platform was designed by Google and is today part of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. Kubernetes is surely one of the major providers in the market of container operating systems.
But what many do not know, is the complexity of this platform if used in smaller projects. To understand this you need to know, that Kubernetes was designed for the operation of large cloud environments as they are operated by Google, Amazon or Microsoft. This means that with the help of Kubernetes you can not only manage one server, but hundreds of servers with thousands of services. For most projects, this power is superfluous. Continue reading “An Alternative to Kubernetes”
WWW Inventor Tim Berners-Lee Launches a Project to Save the Internet
The WWW Inventor Tim Berners-Lee Launches a new open platform called “Solid”. With Solid, users can share their data with others without having to surrender their sovereignty to a group. Users should be able to decide for themselves who can access the data and which apps will be used.
To solve the problem of how to control personal data, in Solid all data is stored in a so called Solid POD. This Solid POD can be in your house or workplace, or with an online Solid POD provider of your choice. Since you control your server you own your data. You’re free to move it at any time, without interruption of service.
In my opinion, this is the only sensible solution to return data control back to the user. I hope this project gets enough attention. Your data is too serious to ignore.
Use Docker Instead of Kubernetes
Today we are all talking about Containers and container based infrastructure. There is a lot of hype and noise about this topic. But what is this container technology? And how does it solve today problems?
I am using containers by myself and of course I am fascinated from this server technology. Containers can really simplify things. After more than 20 years in building server applications I have experienced many problems very closely.
I call it “server technology“, which may sound a little strange to some. Are containers not more of a cloud technology? And this is the one thing that really bothers me is this current hype. When I talk about containers many people think about this Kubernetes thing. And this was the impulse to write this article. Continue reading “Use Docker Instead of Kubernetes”
Docker Container Persistence
Today I found a very good article on DZone.com about how to manage persistence for statefull docker containers. The article is from StorageOS and gives a very good overview about the problems and requirements.
Read the full article here: https://dzone.com/refcardz/persistent-container-storage?chapter=1
The Way from JSF to MVC 1.0….
In this tutorial I will try to figure out how the new Web Framework MVC 1.0 works and what this means to the established JSF developer. So if you are familiar with JSF this may help you to discover a new framework for Web applications. Continue reading “The Way from JSF to MVC 1.0….”
How to use Traefik.io as Static Proxy
Traefik.io is a very cool open source project, providing a powerful reverse proxy. The project is focusing mainly on container based architectures like Docker Swarm. In such an environment Traefik.io is able to recognize new containers in a network and dynamically computes the route from the frontend to the corresponding backend service. I wrote about this functionality in combination with docker swarm already in my blog: Lightweight Docker Swarm Environment. This concept is also part of the Imixs-Workflow project.
But what if you just want to add a kind of static route, which has nothing to do with container based services. I had this situation as I wanted to redirect incoming requests for a specific host name to an external server – outside of my docker swarm.
To realize this, you can add a front-end rule under the section [file] at the end of your traefik.toml file. This is an example how such a rule can looks like:
...
[file]
[backends]
[backends.backend1]
[backends.backend1.servers]
[backends.backend1.servers.server0]
url = "http://some.host.de:12345"
# note that you cannot add path in 'url' field
[frontends]
[frontends.frontend1]
entryPoints = ["http"]
backend = "backend1"
passHostHeader = true
[frontends.frontend1.routes]
[frontends.frontend1.routes.route0]
rule = "Host:www.myweb.com"
This rule proxies requests for “www.myweb.com” to the host “some.host.de:12345”. See also the discussion here.