Working with Bluemix

This Developer Hat article is not really about coding.  It's more about how to easily use Bluemix to get started, and then build, deploy and run a Java application in the cloud.  For me, this would have been a fairly trivial exercise if I were developing a WAS app on my desktop.  But I imagined getting it deployed to the cloud was going to be hard.  I was wrong.

So today I wanted to write a simple app in Java, only because I know Java better than I know node.js or other languages.  The first step, is to search Bluemix for a starting point, and since I wanted something quick and dirty I just I started with a simple WAS Liberty Profile and a simple servlet.

Bluemix guides you pretty well, explaining how to download your sample code as well as the CF and Bluemix command line utilities.  I installed the utilities, and unzipped the sample code to my workspace. Even though I already have umpteen copies of Eclipse sitting around, Bluemix tells me I will need the Mars version and some add-ons, IBM Eclipse Tools for Bluemix and Liberty profile V8.5.5.5 (or later) runtime 

I already have Liberty up and running for some other projects I'm working on, so I skipped that one. And just pulled down Mars and the Tools for Bluemix.

Opened the new Eclipse, Import Existing Projects and pointed at the sample code I pulled from Bluemix.  I found the sample servlet class.  Made my changes.  Verified the descriptor.  Saved the WAR file.

I had to edit the YML file.  It tells CF how to build and deploy, and since I changed my servlet WAR file name, that had to go into the YML file.  After that I followed the instructions on Bluemix on how to use CF to upload.  A few minutes later I have a nice little servlet running on Bluemix.  I'm happy.