While developers gravitate towards cloud native languages and frameworks, there are still plenty of perfectly functioning Java code that are running in a lot of enterprises that may not be due for a rewrite/overhaul for one reason or another. These often run on a Java application server such Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (JBoss EAP). Here is a simple tip on developing for JBoss EAP that may not be obvious for developers coming from other application servers.

maven

Developers coming from other app servers may not know that Red Hat offers a Maven repository of Java components shipped with Red Hat middlewares. These also include Red Hat QC’ed version of frameworks such as Hibernate, Slf4j, etc.

Subscribers of JBoss EAP can add this Maven repo to their build by adding the following to their Maven settings.xml or in the project POM files.

<repositories>
    <repository>
        <releases>
            <enabled>true</enabled>
        </releases>
        <snapshots>
            <enabled>false</enabled>
        </snapshots>
        <id>jboss-enterprise-maven-repository</id>
        <url>https://maven.repository.redhat.com/ga/</url>
    </repository>
</repositories>
<pluginRepositories>
    <pluginRepository>
        <releases>
            <enabled>true</enabled>
        </releases>
        <snapshots>
            <enabled>false</enabled>
        </snapshots>
        <id>jboss-enterprise-maven-repository</id>
        <url>https://maven.repository.redhat.com/ga/</url>
    </pluginRepository>
</pluginRepositories>

You can find a sample settings.xml here.

bom

In addition, Red Hat supplies Bill of Material (BOM) POMs that aggregates the different libaries used in a product so that they can be consumed easily.

Specifically, for JBoss EAP, the following BOMs are provided:

BOM Artifact ID	Use Case
eap-runtime-artifacts	Supported JBoss EAP runtime artifacts.
jboss-eap-jakartaee8	Supported JBoss EAP Jakarta EE 8 APIs plus additional JBoss EAP API JARs.
jboss-eap-jakartaee8-with-spring4	jboss-eap-jakartaee8 plus recommended Spring 4 versions.
jboss-eap-jakartaee8-with-tools	jboss-eap-jakartaee8 plus development tools such as Arquillian.

See the documentation here for details.

To make use of these BOMs, add a dependencyManagement entry in the project’s POM file:

<dependencyManagement>
    <dependencies>
        <!--
            importing the jakartaee8-with-tools BOM adds specs and other useful
            artifacts as managed dependencies
        -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.jboss.bom</groupId>
            <artifactId>jboss-eap-jakartaee8-with-tools</artifactId>
            <version>${version.jboss.eap}</version>
            <type>pom</type>
            <scope>import</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>

<properties>
    <version.jboss.eap>7.3.3.GA</version.jboss.eap>
</properties>

With this in place, we can refer to dependencies that are contained in the BOM without having to specify the version:

<dependencies>
    <!-- Import the CDI API, we use provided scope as the API is included in JBoss EAP -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>jakarta.enterprise</groupId>
        <artifactId>jakarta.enterprise.cdi-api</artifactId>
        <scope>provided</scope>
    </dependency>
    <!--
        Import the Common Annotations API (JSR-250), we use provided
        scope as the API is included in JBoss EAP.
    -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.jboss.spec.javax.annotation</groupId>
        <artifactId>jboss-annotations-api_1.3_spec</artifactId>
        <scope>provided</scope>
    </dependency>
    <!-- Import the JAX-RS API, we use provided scope as the API is included in JBoss EAP. -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.jboss.spec.javax.ws.rs</groupId>
        <artifactId>jboss-jaxrs-api_2.1_spec</artifactId>
        <scope>provided</scope>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

Notice we can use the provided scope to make use of the JARs included in JBoss EAP and reduce the size of our deployables.

We can organize this in parent/child projects POMs as well, as found in the sample project here.

This approach ensure we use of as much of the Red Hat tested/certified JARs as possible, and take advantage of any bug/security fixes that Red Hat provides.

Make full use of your Red Hat subscription :-)