Spring Boot Microservices and Eureka Server: Setup and Benefits

Introduction

Microservices is the architecture that is used to develop distributed applications or applications that can work independently. These applications are loosely coupled with technology, framework or platform. If we create these applications once then they can be used by multiple applications. Every microservice application can be developed and can be used without disturbing other applications.

Related read: Best Way to Become a Great Programmer

Why Microservices?

• In monolithic applications, we can build applications in a single project but by using microservices we can divide applications into multiple modules and can deploy these modules independently.
• In monolithic applications, if we make changes in any module and want to deploy these changes then we have to stop the whole application and perform deployment but in microservices, we just have to stop the module which we want to deploy.
• If there exists any error in the application then the whole application will crash but in microservice, only that module will be affected.
• Microservice is easy to develop and debug as we will immediately get an idea about which module has caused the issue and it can be fixed faster than a monolithic application where we would have to debug the entire application.

Benefits of Microservices

Microservice architecture is a design or specification that provides a set of rules and guidelines to develop a project as a set of loosely coupled/de-coupled services. Each service is self-contained and performs a specific task or function.

Let’s explore the benefits brought by microservices architecture:

👍 Scalability: Microservices are designed to be scalable and secure. Each service can be scaled independently, which means that you can add more instances of a service to handle increased traffic without affecting the performance of other services.

👍 Resilience: Microservices are more resilient to failure than monolithic applications. If one microservice fails, It won’t affect other microservices we have in our application. This is because each service is responsible for its own data and state.

👍 Agility: Microservices are easier to develop and deploy than monolithic applications. This is because each service is smaller and more independent.

👍 Portability: Microservices are portable. They can be deployed on different platforms and in different environments.

👍 Reusability: Microservices can be reused across different applications.

Watch Our Video: Exploring Microservice Architecture for Healthcare Software

Drawbacks of Microservices

However, microservices architecture also has some drawbacks, such as:

👎 Complexity: As compared to monolithic architecture microservice architecture can be more complex. This is because there are more components to manage and more dependencies to track.

👎 Communication Overhead: Microservices communicate with each other using APIs. This can add communication overhead, which can impact performance.

👎 Testing: Testing microservices is challenging because each service must be tested independently.

👎 Deployment: Deploying microservices can be more complex than deploying monolithic applications. This is because each service must be deployed separately.

Overall, microservices architecture can offer a number of benefits for software development. However, it is important to weigh the benefits and drawbacks before deciding whether to use this approach.

Spring Boot Microservices: Creating a Eureka Service

To start with Spring Boot microservices with Netflix Eureka Server, create a ‘EurekaServer’ Spring Starters Project in Eclipse IDE. Choose Spring Starter Project and click on Next.

Eureka Server is a service discovery server that holds the information about all client-service applications. Every microservice registers itself with the Eureka Server, and the Eureka Server keeps track of the location of all the microservices. This allows microservices to find each other without having to know about each other’s IP addresses or ports. Eureka Server is also known as a discovery server.

You can name your Spring Boot project anything you want. However, if you want to follow the convention, you can name it EurekaServer. The other details, such as the package name and the main class, will be filled automatically by Spring Boot.
Note: Check your internet connection otherwise It will throw an error.

Now, Add Eureka Server dependencies and click on Finish.

Now, Modify the application.properties file to add a port number and disable registration.

server.port=8081
eureka.client.register-with-eureka=false
eureka.client.fetch-registry=false

Open the main method EurekaServiceApplication.java and add @EnableEurekaServer above @SpringBootApplication.

Import @EnableEurekaServer From:

Import org.springframework.cloud.netflix.eureka.server.EnableEurekaServer;

@EnableEurekaServer
@SpringBootApplication

@EnableEurekaServer Annotation enables the Eureka Server autoconfiguration. This annotation tells Spring Boot to automatically configure the Eureka Server, including its dependencies and properties.

To run the Eureka Server application, you can right-click on the project in your IDE and select “Run as > Spring Boot Application”.

Now open http://localhost:8081. If no microservices are registered with the Eureka Server, the Eureka Server will show ‘No instances available’.

Again create a new project. Use EurekaClient for the artifact name and click on Next.

Add the following dependencies:
Eureka Discovery Client: For service registration.

Click on Finish.

Add an application name in the application.properties file to display in the Eureka service, and set the port 8082.

server.port=8082
spring.application.name=eureka-client-service

Open the main method EurekaServiceApplication.java and add @EnableEurekaClient above @SpringBootApplication.

Now, to start the application right-click on the ‘Eureka Client’ project–> Run the application as follows.

Note: If you encounter any errors, right-click on the Eureka Client project and select Run as > Maven build.

To verify that the Eureka Client service is running on the Eureka Server, open http://localhost:8081 in your browser.

Github Links of Two Microservices

1. Eureka Server

2. Eureka Client