Craig Walls

Next Gen Spring Boot 2023 Edition featuring Spring 6

9:00 AM MDT

The Spring Framework transformed enterprise Java development nearly two decades ago, making it easier to achieve common things such as transactions, security, loose-coupling, and much more Over the years, Spring has continued to rise to every challenge Java developers face, most recently addressing subjects such as reactive programming, cloud computing, and container deployment in Kubernetes. Meanwhile, Spring Boot makes easy work of Spring by employing (among other things) auto-configuration, runtime insight and management, and a practical convention for specifying application properties.

The releases of Spring Framework 6 and Spring Boot 3 bring exciting and useful new capabilities. With features like native compilation, improved observability and tracing, support for HTTP problem details, and declarative HTTP clients, as well as baselining on Java 17 and Jakarta EE 9, Spring is ready for a new generation of application development.

In this workshop, you'll start with a very simple Spring Boot application and learn to grow it into a fully functional application including a web front-end and data persistence. And you'll get hands-on experience with some of the most exciting new features in Spring 6 and Spring Boot 3.

Alexa Unplugged: Building Location Aware Voice Experiences for Alexa

8:30 PM MDT

When you think of voice assistants like Amazon Alexa, you probably are thinking of a device on a shelf or a desk somewhere, tethered to a power outlet. But what if you could take Alexa with you wherever you go?

Several devices allow for mobile Alexa, including Echo Auto, Echo Frames, Echo Buds, Fossil Gen 6 watches, and the TalkSocket. You can even take Alexa with you on your phone using the Alexa app or on your Apple Watch using the Voice in a Can app. Being able to take Alexa with you opens a whole new world of possibilities, enabling voice application developers to create voice experiences that help users no matter where they are.

In this session, we'll see how to create Alexa applications (called “skills”) that can take advantage of Alexa while on-the-go. You'll learn how to gain permission to access the user's location and provide information relevant to that location. We'll also have a look at a real-world Alexa Skill that uses location awareness to enhance a visit to Disneyland or Disney World theme parks.

Spring into K8s: Deploying Spring Application in Kubernetes

9:00 AM MDT

Although Java originally promised write once, run anywhere, it failed to fully deliver on that promise. As developers, we can develop, test, and build our applications into WAR or executable JAR files and then toss them over the wall to a Java application server and Java runtime that we have no control over, giving us zero confidence that the application will behave the same as when we tested it.

Containers fulfill the write-once, run anywhere promise that Java wasn't able to, by packaging the runtime and even the operating system along with our application, giving greater control and confidence that the application will function the same anywhere it is run. Additionally, containers afford several other benefits, including easy scaling, efficiency in terms of resource utilization, and security by isolating containers from their host system and from other containers.

While deploying Spring applications in containers has always been possible, Spring Boot makes it easier to containerize our applications and run them in container architectures such as Kubernetes. Spring Boot's support for containerization includes two options: Creating containers based on buildpacks or using layers as a means of modularizing and reducing the size of our application deployments. Moreover, new components in the Spring ecosystem can make your Spring applications Kubernetes-savvy so that they can take advantage of what a containerized architecture has to offer.

In this example-driven session, we're going to look at how to create and deploy Spring applications as container images and deploy them into a Kubernetes cluster. Along the way, we'll also get to know a few of the most useful tools that a Spring developer can employ in their development workflow when building containerized Spring applications. We'll also see how to apply patterns of Spring Cloud–such as configuration, service discovery, and gateways–using native Kubernetes facilities instead of Spring Cloud components. And we'll look at how components of the Spring ecosystem can work with your Spring applications to enable them to thrive in a Kubernetes cluster.

Spring into K8s: Deploying Spring Application in Kubernetes

11:00 AM MDT

Although Java originally promised write once, run anywhere, it failed to fully deliver on that promise. As developers, we can develop, test, and build our applications into WAR or executable JAR files and then toss them over the wall to a Java application server and Java runtime that we have no control over, giving us zero confidence that the application will behave the same as when we tested it.

Containers fulfill the write-once, run anywhere promise that Java wasn't able to, by packaging the runtime and even the operating system along with our application, giving greater control and confidence that the application will function the same anywhere it is run. Additionally, containers afford several other benefits, including easy scaling, efficiency in terms of resource utilization, and security by isolating containers from their host system and from other containers.

While deploying Spring applications in containers has always been possible, Spring Boot makes it easier to containerize our applications and run them in container architectures such as Kubernetes. Spring Boot's support for containerization includes two options: Creating containers based on buildpacks or using layers as a means of modularizing and reducing the size of our application deployments. Moreover, new components in the Spring ecosystem can make your Spring applications Kubernetes-savvy so that they can take advantage of what a containerized architecture has to offer.

In this example-driven session, we're going to look at how to create and deploy Spring applications as container images and deploy them into a Kubernetes cluster. Along the way, we'll also get to know a few of the most useful tools that a Spring developer can employ in their development workflow when building containerized Spring applications. We'll also see how to apply patterns of Spring Cloud–such as configuration, service discovery, and gateways–using native Kubernetes facilities instead of Spring Cloud components. And we'll look at how components of the Spring ecosystem can work with your Spring applications to enable them to thrive in a Kubernetes cluster.

Reactive Spring APIs

1:30 PM MDT

In this example-driven presentation, we'll focus on how to build reactive APIs in Spring. We'll start with Spring WebFlux, a reactive reimagining of the popular Spring MVC framework for HTTP-based APIs. Then we'll have a look at RSocket, an intriguing new communication protocol that is reactive by design.

Traditionally, applications have been built using a blocking, synchronous model. Although comfortable and intuitive for most programmers, this model doesn't scale well. And although there are several new approaches to reactive programming, they don't necessarily fit into the familiar programming model that Spring developers are accustomed to working with.

Spring 5 introduced a set of new reactive features, enabling non-blocking, asynchronous code that scales well using minimal threads. Moreover, it builds on the same concepts and programming models that Spring developers have used for years.

Reactive Spring APIs

3:15 PM MDT

In this example-driven presentation, we'll focus on how to build reactive APIs in Spring. We'll start with Spring WebFlux, a reactive reimagining of the popular Spring MVC framework for HTTP-based APIs. Then we'll have a look at RSocket, an intriguing new communication protocol that is reactive by design.

Traditionally, applications have been built using a blocking, synchronous model. Although comfortable and intuitive for most programmers, this model doesn't scale well. And although there are several new approaches to reactive programming, they don't necessarily fit into the familiar programming model that Spring developers are accustomed to working with.

Spring 5 introduced a set of new reactive features, enabling non-blocking, asynchronous code that scales well using minimal threads. Moreover, it builds on the same concepts and programming models that Spring developers have used for years.

Reactive Spring Persistence

5:00 PM MDT

In this example-driven presentation, we'll focus on working with reactive data persistence. We'll start by seeing how to create reactive repositories for relational databases with Spring Data R2DBC. Then we'll explore non-relational reactive persistence for MongoDB and Cassandra.

Traditionally, applications have been built using a blocking, synchronous model. Although comfortable and intuitive for most programmers, this model doesn't scale well. And although there are several new approaches to reactive programming, they don't necessarily fit into the familiar programming model that Spring developers are accustomed to working with.

Spring 5 introduced a set of new reactive features, enabling non-blocking, asynchronous code that scales well using minimal threads. Moreover, it builds on the same concepts and programming models that Spring developers have used for years.

Spring Graph QL

8:30 AM MDT

In this example-driven session, we're going to look at how to implement GraphQL in Spring. You'll learn how Spring for GraphQL builds upon GraphQL Java, recognize the use-cases that are best suited for GraphQL, and how to build a GraphQL API in Spring.

Typical REST APIs deal in resources. This is fine for many use cases, but it tends to be more rigid and less efficient in others.

For example, in an shopping API, it's important to weigh how much or how little information should be provided in a request for an order resource? Should the order resource contain only order specifics, but no details about the order's line items or the products in those line items? If all relevant details is included in the response, then it's breaking the boundaries of what the resource should offer and is overkill for clients that do not need it. On the other hand, proper factoring of the resource will require that the client make multiple requests to the API to fetch relevant information that they may need.

GraphQL offers a more flexible alternative to REST, setting aside the resource-oriented model and focusing more on what a client needs. Much as how SQL allows for data from multiple tables to be selected and joined in response to a query, GraphQL offers API clients the possibility of tailoring the response to provide all of the information needed and nothing that they do not need.

Spring Graph QL

10:30 AM MDT

In this example-driven session, we're going to look at how to implement GraphQL in Spring. You'll learn how Spring for GraphQL builds upon GraphQL Java, recognize the use-cases that are best suited for GraphQL, and how to build a GraphQL API in Spring.

Typical REST APIs deal in resources. This is fine for many use cases, but it tends to be more rigid and less efficient in others.

For example, in an shopping API, it's important to weigh how much or how little information should be provided in a request for an order resource? Should the order resource contain only order specifics, but no details about the order's line items or the products in those line items? If all relevant details is included in the response, then it's breaking the boundaries of what the resource should offer and is overkill for clients that do not need it. On the other hand, proper factoring of the resource will require that the client make multiple requests to the API to fetch relevant information that they may need.

GraphQL offers a more flexible alternative to REST, setting aside the resource-oriented model and focusing more on what a client needs. Much as how SQL allows for data from multiple tables to be selected and joined in response to a query, GraphQL offers API clients the possibility of tailoring the response to provide all of the information needed and nothing that they do not need.