Microservices for Java Developers, 2nd Edition

Chapter 3. Eclipse MicroProfile for Microservices

The next Java microservice framework we’ll look at is MicroProfile.

Java Enterprise Edition (EE) (now Jakarta EE) has been the workhorse of enterprise Java applications for more than 15 years. Many enterprises have heavily invested in open source and proprietary Java EE technologies, and this has affected everything from how they hire software talent to training, tooling, and management. Java EE has always been very capable at helping developers build tiered applications by offering functionality like servlets/JavaServer Pages (JSPs), transactions, component models, messaging, and persistence.

Despite its popularity, recently the feeling began to grow that Java EE’s pace of innovation was too slow for a world that demanded cloud-native applications, microservices, and containers. This feeling prompted various Java User Groups, Java Champions, vendors, and corporations to join forces and release the MicroProfile specification.

MicroProfile 1.0, announced during JavaOne 2016, was composed of the CDI, JSON-P, and JAX-RS specifications from Java EE. These base APIs allow experienced Java EE developers to utilize their existing skill sets for this fast-paced, innovative, and open source specification.

As a specification, there are several MicroProfile implementations: these include Thorntail from Red Hat, Payara Micro from Payara, TomEE from Apache, and OpenLiberty from IBM, just to name a few.

Because Java EE had a strong influence ...