About

A backend for the ToDo app written written in Java. ToDos can be stored in either a Mongo DB or Couch DB using Cloudant.

Prerequisites

The project uses Maven to manage dependencies, build, test, and deploy. If you don't have Maven installed, you can do so by following this guide.

Building

To build the project you just need to run Maven. Change directories to the bluemix-todo-app folder within the Java folder and run Maven.

$ cd java/bluemix-todo-app
$ mvn

Running The App Locally

You can run the app locally for development purposes. When you do run the app locally, ToDos are stored in memory so when you restart the server the ToDos will be lost.
(It does not require nor use a database locally to run.) To run the app locally execute the following Maven command in the root of the project.

$ mvn -P run

Then open your favorite browser and navigate to http://localhost:8080.

Deploying The App To Bluemix

You can deploy to Bluemix using the cf command line interface, or the cloudfoundry maven plugin.

Deploy using cf cli

cf push YOUR-APP-NAME -p target/bluemix-todo-app.war -b java_buildpack

In a couple of minutes, your application should be deployed to YOUR-APP-NAME.mybluemix.net. However the ToDos will be stored in memory, and therefore will be lost if the application restarts, is updated or scaled. To create a cloudant database, bind it to your app and then restage it:

cf create-service cloudantNoSQLDB Shared todo-couch-db
cf bind-service YOUR-APP-NAME todo-couch-db
cf restage YOUR-APP-NAME

Deploy using maven

We use the Cloud Foundry Maven Plugin to deploy the app to Bluemix. Before using Maven to deploy the app you just need to do a small amount of configuration so Maven knows your Bluemix credentials. To do this open the settings.xml file in ~/.m2. Within the servers element add the code below inserting your credentials.

<server>
  <id>Bluemix</id>
  <username>user@email.com</username>
  <password>bluemixpassword</password>
</server>

If you do not see a settings.xml file in ~/.m2 than you will have to create one. To do this just copy the settings.xml file from /conf into ~/.m2.

Now that Maven knows your credentials you can deploy the app. The app can be deployed using either a Mongo DB backend or a backend based on Couch DB such as Cloudant.

Deploying The App With Mongo DB Backend

To do this you just need to run a Maven command specifying the URL and the organization you want to use.

mvn -P mongo-deploy -Dapp-url=bluemix-todo-java-mongo.mybluemix.net -Dorg=organization

The app-url parameter must be unique, so choose a URL that is meaningful to you. The org parameter represents the organization in Bluemix you want to deploy the app too. By default everyone has an organization name that is their user ID. This command will deploy the app to the space called dev by default, you can use the space parameter to deploy it to a different space. For example

mvn -P mongo-deploy -Dapp-url=bluemix-todo-java-mongo.mybluemix.net -Dorg=organization -Dspace=myspace

Deploying The App With Cloudant Backend

To do this you just need to run a Maven command specifying the URL, organization, Cloudant credentials, and Cloudant URL.

$ mvn -P cloudant-deploy -Dapp-url=bluemix-todo-java-cloudant.mybluemix.net -Dorg=organization

Just like with the Mongo DB version you need to make sure the app-url is unique. In addition by default this command will use the space called dev. You can specify a different space if you would like using the space parameter.

$ mvn -P cloudant-deploy -Dapp-url=bluemix-todo-java-cloudant.mybluemix.net -Dorg=organization -Dspace=myspace

Additional Information

This project is leveraging the spring-cloud library to help retrieve service information from the VCAP_SERVICES environment variable. See the ToDoStoreFactory class for an example of how you can use this library to more easily use the information within VCAP_SERVICES.