Try Camel on Quarkus in the Developer Sandbox for Red Hat OpenShift

October 6, 2023
Bruno Meseguer
Related topics:
IntegrationQuarkus
Related products:
Developer SandboxRed Hat build of QuarkusRed Hat OpenShiftRed Hat OpenShift Container Platform

You can now try Apache Camel on Quarkus in the Developer Sandbox for Red Hat OpenShift, an OpenShift environment you can access for a no-cost, hands-on experience in building and deploying cloud-native applications quickly. This article will guide you to the Developer Sandbox and through a Camel Quarkus integration in a fully web-based experience—no local installs needed.

Camel Quarkus is the latest Camel runtime generation. It allows you to run integration processes with super-low memory usage, fast startup, and outstanding performance. The article Boost Apache Camel performance on Quarkus introduces the topic well.

To learn more about the various Camel runtimes available, read the 3-part series article Choose the best Camel for your integration ride.

REST and SOAP with Camel on Quarkus

One recent addition to Camel Quarkus is the ability to perform SOAP operations using Apache CXF, a well-known Java library historically used by Camel but only recently available for Quarkus. 

The demo defines a front-facing OpenAPI service called simple, which integrates with a back-end SOAP service. The code also includes the stub to simulate the SOAP endpoint. The flow showcases an adaptation layer from REST to SOAP. It’s a relatively simple use case but very common in the enterprise. It defines a REST API and hides a legacy service behind the scenes (Figure 1).

Diagram showing the Camel on Quarkus flow from client to SOAP service.
Figure 1: The Camel on Quarkus flow.

Demo highlights

The big win for you is the chance to play the demo in a free-to-access environment from your browser and view/edit the code, and build, deploy, and test the application. Regarding Camel on Quarkus, the example stands out on various fronts.

First of all, both REST and SOAP interfaces are implemented following a contract-first approach. In essence, we rely on the OpenAPI (REST) and WSDL (SOAP) definitions to auto-generate the application’s input/output interfaces. Figure 2 shows how a contract-first OpenAPI helps the developer; this is also valid for SOAP.

Figure 2: Contract-first development.
Figure 2: Contract-first development.

Another notable feature in the demo is data transformation. JSON input must be mapped to outgoing SOAP during the request flow and perform the reverse operation during the response flow. It is all done in a single transformation stylesheet using XSLTs, as in Figure 3.

Diagram of the JSON / SOAP data mapping flow.
Figure 3: JSON / SOAP data mapping operations.

And finally, included in the code, you’ll find a test unit (JUnit) to validate the entire request/response flow (Figure 4). You will discover how to use Camel’s testing framework to dynamically spin up an actual SOAP back end to test against, trigger the processing flow, and tear it all down when done.

The unit testing flow with Camel and JUnit.
Figure 4: Unit testing with Camel.

What is unique about Camel running on Quarkus, but also true for all runtimes, is how little code is required and how elegantly it is laid out. This simplicity guarantees economical, long-term, and sustainable support for your landscape of implemented Camel services.

If you would like to see how all of this is done, jump straight into the Developer Sandbox to explore the code and execute it.

Access the Developer Sandbox

Follow these instructions to get started in the Developer Sandbox: How to access the Developer Sandbox for Red Hat OpenShift

Once you have your browser connected to the Developer Sandbox console, you’ll be all set to start the article’s tutorial.

Inside OpenShift Dev Spaces

The Developer Sandbox ships with an entire web-based IDE called Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces (formerly Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces).

Set up your dev environment with the Camel tutorials

The animated sequence in Figure 5 illustrates the actions to follow to open your development environment along with your tutorial instructions.

The steps for setting up your development environment in the OpenShift Dev Spaces user interface.
Figure 5: The OpenShift Dev Spaces UI.

Follow these steps:

  1. From the web console, click the Applications icon as shown in Figure 5 (marked 1).
  2. Select Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces (2). You will be prompted to log in and authorize access; select the Allow selected permissions option.

  3. When the Create Workspace dashboard in OpenShift Dev Spaces opens, copy the snippet below:

    https://github.com/RedHat-Middleware-Workshops/devsandbox-camel.git

    Then, paste it into the Git Repo URL field (3).

  4. Click Create & Open (4).
  5. When the workspace finishes provisioning and the IDE opens, click the deployable Endpoints accordion (5).
  6. Then, click on the icon (6), which opens the tutorial in a new browser tab.
  7. Choose the tutorial indicated in the next section.

Start the Camel Quarkus tutorial

Select the Camel Quarkus - Rest/Soap Demo tile, highlighted in Figure 6.

The Camel Quarkus - Rest/Soap Demo tile highlighted in the Solution Explorer.
Figure 6: Locating the Camel Quarkus tutorial.

When you click on the tile, the Solution Explorer will show the lab introductions and the exercise chapters included, which you should be able to complete in around 15 minutes.

Enjoy the Camel ride!

Watch a video on how to get started

Watch the following video to see an execution of the use case described in this article.

More Apache Camel resources

This article ends here, but this should only be the start of your journey with Apache Camel. The Developer Sandbox for Red Hat OpenShift gives you the opportunity to play on a Kubernetes-based application platform with an integrated developer IDE (OpenShift Dev Spaces).

We encourage you to check out the resources below to learn more about Camel and explore different ways to build applications with Apache Camel:

Last updated: November 1, 2023