New Camel in Action Chapters

Today we posted 2 new chapters for the Camel in Action MEAP. Claus will most likely fill you in about the chapter on bean integration soon. Let me give you a little info about chapter 2 now though. Chapter 2 is basically all about routing - a pretty fundamental topic for Camel! I cover route creation in Java and Spring, as well as several EIPs. Since it is such an early chapter its pretty hand-holding throughout - you don't need to know Spring or EIPs beforehand, for instance.

I also introduce a new running example to the book: Rider Auto Parts. You may remember them from the DZone article Integration Nirvana I wrote earlier this year.

We actually started using a Google Code project for hosting the books source code so you can see the code for chapter 2 here:
http://code.google.com/p/camelinaction/source/checkout

In the coming months the source from other chapters will also be added. As always, we love feedback in the book's forum.

Camel in Action

As Claus just announced, we are writing a book with Hadrian on Apache Camel entitled "Camel in Action".

There has been a real need for such a book for a long time. We're hoping to fill the gap in the current documentation thats out there and provide a go to resource for new and experienced users alike.

A neat thing about writing at Manning is that readers can see the book as its being written (in all its rough glory :)) and provide feedback directly to us. Also its early enough in the writing process so that you could have real influence on what topics get included!

Feel free to check out the book and forums.

Introduction to the Open eHealth Integration Platform

Martin Krasser has just posted an excellent article on the Open eHealth Integration Platform (IPF). The IPF is essentially an extension of Apache Camel for the healthcare domain. Where Camel focuses on providing an easy to use domain specific language (DSL) for enterprise integration, the IPF adds DSL terms from the healthcare domain. Go check it out!

Introduction to the Open eHealth Integration Platform

Apache Camel Refcard at DZone

Fellow Camel guru Claus Ibsen has created a lovely Refcard for DZone. From the description

This Refcard provides you with eleven of the most essential patterns that anyone working with integration must know. This Refcard is targeted for software developers and enterprise architects, but anyone in the integration space can benefit as well.

Go check it out!

Enterprise Integration Patterns with Apache Camel

Apache Camel: Integration Nirvana

I wrote up a little article on Apache Camel for DZone, go check it out!


Apache Camel: Integration Nirvana

Camel User Guide

For those never-read-anything-besides-physical-paper people, the Apache Camel user guide in PDF form may interest you. Be warned for printing it though as its quite large :)

Apache Camel User Guide version 1.6.0

This is really the closest thing we have to a book on Camel. Hoping that will change in the near future!

Another great source for nicely printable Camel documentation is FUSE Source. Check it out here.

Apache Camel 1.6.0 Released!

The Camel team is pleased to announce the release of Apache Camel 1.6.0. Get it while its hot!

Unix/Linux/Cygwin Distribution
Windows Distribution

We've fixed 169 issues in this release so its a worthwhile upgrade for all Camel users. You can find the full list of changes here.

Enjoy!

Apache Camel... more EIPs than you can shake a stick at!

For those of you who don't know already, one of Apache Camel's main themes is to make complex Enterprise Integration Patterns (EIPs) accessible to the everyday Java developer. We have an extensive catalog of EIPs that we support and recently I added a few more.

	Composed Message Processor	How can you maintain the overall message flow when processing a message consisting of multiple elements, each of which may require different processing?
	Claim Check	How can we reduce the data volume of message sent across the system without sacrificing information content?
	Detour	How can you route a message through intermediate steps to perform validation, testing or debugging functions?
	Scatter-Gather	How do you maintain the overall message flow when a message needs to be sent to multiple recipients, each of which may send a reply?

You can try any of these patterns out using Apache Camel / FUSE Mediation Router 1.5 and onward.

POJOs can route too!

In Camel we have several really cool Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) for easily expressing routing rules. But you don't need to learn these to use Camel. Starting with a POJO, you can use annotations to produce, consume or route messages to any Camel endpoint.

Take the following bean for example

public class BeanThatTalksCamel {
    @Produce(uri="activemq:myQueue")
    ProducerTemplate producer;

    @Consume(uri = "file:a/path")
    public void onFileSendToQueue(String body) {
        producer.sendBody(body);
    }
}

We use the @Consume annotation to mark onFileSendToQueue as a consumer of any messages coming from the file:a/path endpoint. To enable the bean to send messages to the activemq:myQueue endpoint, we use the @Produce annotation. All conversions between Files, Strings and JMS Messages are automatic. Pretty easy huh?

We also have the @RecipientList annotation that turns any bean into a dynamic Recipient List.

public class RecipientListBean {
    @Consume(uri = "activemq:myQueue")
    @RecipientList
    public List route(String body) {
       // return list of recipients based on message body
    }
}

Here we consume JMS messages from myQueue and based on the body, send it out to a list of recipients. Again, very easy. If you're a ServiceMix user, Gert mentions how to use this trick from a ServiceMix perspective too, go check it out!

If you need more info, I've put all of these concepts into a little demo here. As always, if you need help using Camel, please get in touch.

Helpful Maven Build Tips

Brian Fox recently posted some great tips to improve your Maven builds. You should check them out if you haven't already. I've been doing most of what he said already but one really caught my attention, and I will repost here:

#6 Print Test Failures to Standard Output

Tip: Enable -Dsurefire.useFile=false. This is a favorite of mine since this causes surefire to print test failures to standard out, where it will get included in the build failure log and email. This saves you from having to dig back onto the machine to find the surefire report just to see a simple stack trace. (to enable globally in settings.xml:true in an active profile)

I can't believe I didn't know about this option before. Having to grep through surefire log files has really annoyed me in the past... many kudos to Brian for sharing this!

Camel is now an Apache top level project!

As James and Claus have said today, Camel has been promoted to a top level project at Apache! This is a great vote of confidence for Camel, my fellow riders, and the rocking community. Thanks to all who've helped so far!

So, you should update your links to http://camel.apache.org now :)