Groovy & Grails - From Scratch to Production
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The document outlines a comprehensive guide on building applications using Grails, focusing on technology selection, development methodologies, and common pitfalls. It highlights the advantages of Grails, such as fast development and integration with existing technologies, while also discussing potential challenges like debugging and hardware requirements. Key recommendations include leveraging Grails plugins with caution and implementing continuous integration practices for efficient deployment.
Groovy & Grails - From Scratch to Production
- 2. Grails – from scratch to production How we build successful application Tal Maayani November 2013
- 3. Agenda • • • • • • About the lecturer Choosing the technology: Grails vs… Common pitfalls Development methodologies Continuous Integration Q&A
- 4. Choose the right technology • Project type: self service web application with a rich back office • Project roadmap: workflow, many integrations with external vendors, analytic, payments • Timeline: start development within a short period, full power development within 3 months, production within 6 months • Budget • Available in-house skillset Requires fast web development framework like Spring ,Play, Rails, Grails, Django
- 5. Comparing between alternatives Feature Grails Rails Language Groovy - JVM based Ruby - Interpreter based Approach Domain oriented Database oriented Thread support Native Poor Hardware requirements Requires more memory, and strong CPU mediocre memory and CPU Learning Curve Fast for a java developers operates in Database model Maturity Less Mature (Founded at 2008) More mature (Founded at 2004) Scalability Offer good scalability Lack scalability Libraries Offers all java based libraries No java libraries longer than Grails since Rails
- 6. Why we chose Grails? • Build on known technologies that we already used • Spring, Hibernate, Tomcat, Quartz • Fast development • Scaffolding , Smart reloading, Hundreds of plugins (~1000), groovy • MVC web application • Domain, GSP, Controller
- 7. Common Grails pitfalls • Writes java in groovy experts • • • • • Use outsource grails Difficult debugging (comparing to java) More logging Maintaining data model Liquibase Groovy dynamic nature Test everything Some plugins are unstable Smart use of plugins Highly hardware demands Use strong machines
- 8. Groovy Ecosystem Spoke Gradle Grails Junit Build framework RAD Platform Gpars Gaelyc Muti-threading Toolkit for GAE EasyB Codenarc GContract Griffon Static code Analysis Design by contract BDD Swing UI And many more …
- 9. Development process Highlights • Holistic thinking: • production deployment, performance, testing, interfaces • Lean development • Development of only what is required • Test on production like environment • System test as soon as possible • Learn from mistakes
- 10. Grails Plugins Recommendations • Do not blind use plugins • • • • Plugins dependencies and footprint considerations Performance consideration (startup overhead) Write your own set of plugins (configuration, health check, authentication, taglibs) Maintain up to date plugin • JS wrapper plugins (Jquery, bootstrap) – • Not always up to date and maintained • sometimes it is preferable to copy the js library instead of using the plugin
- 11. Plugins that we used • • • • • • • • In house development Spring web flow – state machine for managing flows aws – enable use of amazon via grails service Cache, zipped resources Less-css Spring security Quartz Yammer metrics
- 12. AWS Configuration Loader Plugin • Enable the use of external configuration file for per environment settings • Server name, performance tuning, etc. • Receive configuration file • Local file – for development • S3 URL – when running on amazon. Use access and secret keys. • How it works? • Copy the external configuration file locally and merge config.groovy
- 13. Liquibase Plugin • Use when • You are using relational DB on production • Have a frequent schema changes • Major functionality • Keep record of every db schema change, use DSL to record these changes • Enforce object model & DB match (using MD5) • Allows to have business logic (in groovy) to support migrations
- 14. Liquibase Plugin – cont. • Drawbacks (for 1.3.6 and below) • Maintenance • Do not use per environment configuration in datasource.groovy • Extension • Allow running any sql script in change set For example: Quartz schema
- 15. Health Check • Get report for instance health • Access to various data sources (MySQL, Mongo, Oracle) • Access to other components • Triggered from monitoring system • Report generated ad hoc • Implemented in grails plugin • Building block per access point
- 16. Working with Amazon EC2 vs. Elastic Beanstalk Capability EC2 Beanstalk Configuration Management Flexible, can run scripts on instance build, deployments. Can use CM like chef or puppet Use prebuild AM with given configuration. Can use limited Yml script for customization Monitoring, Load Balancing, Auto scaling Need to configure Automatically defined Application management - Manage logs, environment configuration, versions, externalize configuration properties Stopping environment Environment can be stopped Environment cannot be stopped Deployment Custom script AWS API call
- 17. Continuous Integration Using Amazon Dev. commits Build server run unit tests Build server deploy war to dev integration environment Build server deploy war to amazon QA environment Build server triggered Selenium to run subsystem test against QA War is ready (PSP)
- 18. KPI Measurements • Define a set of goals that measures success • Total # of users, abandonment rate, conversion rate • Define measurements tools • Systematically and periodically measure • Learn from the results