Building a Spring Microservice Chassis with Maven POMs: An Example
Developing a microservice architecture using Spring Boot is no easy task, particularly when it comes to managing build plugins and dependencies across multiple microservices. However, with Maven’s parent-child POM inheritance approach, it’s possible to streamline this process and make it more efficient.
This article will guide you through the process of building a Spring Microservice chassis using Maven’s parent-child POM inheritance approach. We will also demonstrate how to inherit build plugins, build experience, and common dependencies from the parent POM, with an illustration to help you get started.
What is Maven Parent-Child POM Inheritance?
Maven’s parent-child POM inheritance approach enables you to define a parent POM that contains common configuration and dependencies for all of your microservices. Child POMs inherit these configurations and dependencies, reducing duplication and making it easier to manage dependencies and build configurations across your microservices.
Inheriting Build Plugins and Build Experience
With the parent-child POM inheritance approach, you can define build configurations such as plugins and build profiles in the parent POM, which are inherited by the child POMs. This makes it simpler to maintain a consistent build experience across all of your microservices.
For instance, you might want to use the same code quality checks or packaging configurations for all of your microservices. By defining these configurations in the parent POM, you can ensure that they are applied to all child POMs automatically.
Common Dependencies Inheritance
In addition to build configurations, you can also define common dependencies in the parent POM. This ensures that all child POMs have access to the same dependencies, minimizing duplication and simplifying dependency management across your microservices.
Here’s an example of how to build a Spring Microservice chassis using Maven’s parent-child POM inheritance approach.
Illustration
- Create a Parent POM
First, create a parent POM called “my-microservice-parent” that contains common dependencies and build configurations, including plugins.
|
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 |
<dependencies> <dependency> <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId> <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId> <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId> </dependency> </dependencies> <build> <plugins> <plugin> <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId> <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId> </plugin> <plugin> <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId> <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId> <version>3.8.0</version> <configuration> <source>1.8</source> <target>1.8</target> </configuration> </plugin> </plugins> </build> |
- Create a Child POM
Next, create a child POM called “my-microservice” that inherits from the parent POM.
|
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 |
<parent> <groupId>com.example</groupId> <artifactId>my-microservice-parent</artifactId> <version>1.0.0-SNAPSHOT</version> </parent> |
- Add Additional Dependencies
You can now add any additional dependencies that are specific to the microservice in the child POM. These dependencies will be added to the common dependencies inherited from the parent POM.
|
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 |
<dependencies> <dependency> <groupId>com.example</groupId> <artifactId>my-special-dependency</artifactId> <version>1.0.0</version> </dependency> </dependencies> |
- Customize Build Configuration
You can also customize build configuration in the child POM. For example, you might want to specify a different port number for the microservice.
|
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 |
<build> <plugins> <plugin> <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId> <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId> <configuration> <finalName>my-microservice</finalName> <jvmArguments>-Xmx512m</jvmArguments> </configuration> </plugin> </plugins> </build> |
- Build and Run the Microservice
Now that you’ve created the parent and child POMs, you can build and run the microservice.
|
1 2 3 4 5 |
mvn clean package java -jar target/my-microservice.jar |
Conclusion
In conclusion, Maven’s parent-child POM inheritance approach makes it easier to manage dependencies and build configurations across multiple microservices. By defining common dependencies and build configurations in the parent POM, you can ensure that they are applied to all child POMs automatically, minimizing duplication and simplifying dependency management. With this approach, building a Spring Microservice chassis becomes more efficient, scalable and easier to maintain.
