How to create a Camel integration and deploy it as a serverless service

Learning path | 5 resources | 1 hr and 45 mins | Published on August 25, 2023

This activity, created by Kah Hoe Lai, walks through how to create an Apache Camel integration and deploy it as a serverless service using the VS Code extension Karavan.

  1. Overview: How to create a Camel integration and deploy it as a serverless service
  2. Launch a new workspace and execute a command inside your pod Page | 15 mins
  3. Install the Karavan extension, then scaffold a new Camel project Page | 30 mins
  4. Create the Camel integration route and the REST API service Page | 30 mins
  5. Run and test inside OpenShift Dev Spaces and deploy it to OpenShift Page | 30 mins

Page

Run and test inside OpenShift Dev Spaces and deploy it to OpenShift

API Management Developer Tools Integration Kubernetes Quarkus Serverless integration Serverless
Kah Hoe Lai
Run and test inside OpenShift Dev Spaces feature image

The finish is in sight. Now that you have successfully created a Camel route file, it's time to run and test it inside OpenShift Dev Spaces then deploy in OpenShift.

What you need

  • A workspace in Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces
  • A no-cost Developer Sandbox for Red Hat OpenShift environment

What you will learn

  • How to install launch Quarkus using Karavan
  • How to deploy to Red Hat OpenShift
  • How to inspect the OpenShift web console

Run and test inside OpenShift Dev Spaces

  1. Launch Camel as Quarkus using Karavan: JBang run (Figure 29).
    Image showing Karavan: JBang run option from context menu.
    Figure 29: The Karavan: JBang run option from context menu.
  2. When prompted, enter 3 to trust the content from https://github.com/apache (Figure 30).
    The terminal waiting for input from Karavan: JBang run command for first time.
    Figure 30: The terminal waiting for input from Karavan: JBang run command for first time.
  3. After the program compiles, it will wait at the following step and listen to port localhost:8080 (Figure 31).
    Console output showing application listening to port 8080.
    Figure 31: Console output showing application listening to port 8080.
  4. Leave the program running in the current terminal (Figure 32). Open a new terminal and switch to it to test the endpoint using the following cURL command: 
    curl localhost:8080 -X POST -d "{\"hello\":\"world\"}" -H "Content-Type: application/json"
    Test the endpoint using the cURL command.
    Figure 32: Test the endpoint using the cURL command.
  5. Switch back to the terminal running the program and verify the service printout for the body (Figure 33).
    Test the endpoint using the cURL command.
    Figure 33: Test the endpoint using the cURL command.
  6. Stop the running process by entering Ctrl + C or Command + C (Figure 34).
    Make sure to focus on the terminal when you issue the stop command.
    Figure 34: Focus on the terminal when you issue the stop command.

You have successfully developed a simple REST API using Camel and Quarkus. Now let's deploy to OpenShift as a Knative serverless service.

Deploy to OpenShift

  1. Update the quarkus.kubernetes.deployment-target to knative (Figure 35).
    The content after deployment target modified to Knative.
    Figure 35: The content after deployment target modified to Knative.
  2. Copy the login command from the OpenShift console (Figure 36).
    The Copy login command from the OpenShift web console.
    Figure 36: The Copy login command from the OpenShift web console.
  3. Make sure you log into OpenShift inside the Dev Spaces terminal and are in the correct project/namespace. Note your project name will be different from mine (Figure 37).
    Log into OpenShift inside the Dev Spaces terminal and confirm the correct project/namespace.
    Figure 37: Log into OpenShift inside the Dev Spaces terminal and confirm the correct project/namespace.
  4. Right-click on the project workspace area and choose Karavan: Deploy (Figure 38).
    The context menu with Karavan: Deploy.
    Figure 38: The context menu with Karavan: Deploy.
  5. Wait for the container image build to finish (Figure 39).
    The build success and the time taken.
    Figure 39: The build success and the time taken.
  6. A new build type source is automatically created for you (Figure 40).
    The build configurations created in the OpenShift web console.
    Figure 40: The build configurations created in the OpenShift web console.

Congratulations! You successfully created a Source-to-Image build and built container images. The image is now deployed as a Knative service (Red Hat OpenShift Serverless).

Inspect the OpenShift web console

  1. If you inspect the OpenShift web console, you'll notice a new Knative service deployed in Topology view. Wait for a while. Notice the pod has scaled to zero when the circle turns from blue to white (Figure 41).
    The Knative service deployed in the OpenShift web console.
    Figure 41: The Knative service deployed in the OpenShift web console.
  2. From the Topology view, click on the icon to get the serverless URL from the Knative service (Figure 42).
    The OpenShift Route URL is highlighted in the Routes section.
    Figure 42: The OpenShift route URLs to the Knative service.
  3. Another way to get the URL is to use the kn CLI. Install the kn CLI using the following command: 
    mkdir -p /projects/.knative/bin

wget -qO /projects/.knative/bin/kn https://github.com/knative/client/releases/download/knative-v1.11.0/kn-linux-amd64

chmod +x /projects/.knative/bin/kn

echo "export PATH=\"/projects/.knative/bin:\$PATH\"" >> ~/.bashrc

source ~/.bashrc
  4. List the serverless endpoint using the cURL command:  
    kn service list
  5. Test the serverless endpoint using the cURL command. The serverless spins up a new pod immediately to serve new requests (Figures 43 and 44): 
    MYURL=$(kn service list -o json | jq -r .items[0].status.url)

curl -k $MYURL -X POST -d "{\"hello\":\"world\"}" -H "Content-Type: application/json"
    The pods servicing the new request.
    Figure 43: The pods servicing the new request.
    The pods servicing the new request.
    Figure 44: The pods servicing the new request.
  6. After a while, the pod will terminate itself and return all the memory and CPU resources back to the server.

Congratulations! You have successfully deployed a serverless service using Quarkus and Camel.

Conclusion

Creating a Camel integration and deploying it as a serverless service opens up a new approach to implementing Enterprise Integration Patterns (EIP) and helps systems connect to one another. Many exciting things are happening in the integration world. The Red Hat build of Apache Camel is a great place to learn more.

Previous resource
Create the Camel integration route and the REST API service