Getting Started Locally

This guide walks you through setting up your local development environment using Apache Geode and a Hello, World! client application.

What is Apache Geode?

Tanzu GemFire, an enterprise offering, is powered by Apache Geode and adds additional enterprise functionality and integrations. Apache Geode is the open source core of Tanzu GemFire. This means that you can use Apache Geode on your local machine when developing and testing your Tanzu GemFire applications.

Install Apache Geode for Local Development

There are multiple ways to install Apache Geode for local development. We will highlight two different ways below (brew or a .zip/.tar file), however you can find additional installation options here.

Option 1: Using brew

In a terminal run the following command:

brew install apache-geode

This will install the most recent version of Apache Geode.

Option 2: Download a .zip or .tar file.

  1. Download the .zip or .tar file from the Apache Releases page.

  2. Unzip or expand the file.

  3. Add the Geode bin directory to your PATH environment variable.

    macOS/Unix/Linux

    PATH=$PATH:$JAVA_HOME/bin:path_to_product/bin
export PATH

    Windows set PATH=%PATH%;%JAVA_HOME%\bin;path_to_product\bin

Check your installation

In a terminal type

gfsh version

You should see something similar to

gfsh version
1.13.1

Apache Geode is now installed on your machine.

Set Up Your Local Environment

This section will guide you through testing a Hello, World! client app on your local machine to confirm that your local environment is set up correctly.

What You’ll Need

  • The Hello, World! example.
  • JDK 8 or 11
  • Spring Boot 2.1 or above
  • Spring Boot for Apache Geode
  • Apache Geode installed on your local machine.

1. Download the Hello, World! Example

Clone the Hello, World! app from the Tanzu GemFire examples repo.

$ git clone https://github.com/gemfire/spring-for-apache-geode-examples.git

2. Start an Apache Geode Cluster

This will start a small local cluster for the Hello, World! app to connect.

  • In a terminal start the Geode Shell (gfsh)

    gfsh

  • Start a locator. Locators provide both discovery and load balancing services.

    start locator --name=hello-world-locator

  • Start a server. Servers are primarily used to store data in regions (similar to a table in a relational database.

    start server --name=hello-world-server

  • Once those commands have finished you can run the list members command and you should see something similar to

Member Count : 2

       Name         | Id
------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
hello-world-locator | 192.168.1.14(hello-world-locator:33323:locator)<ec><v0>:41000 [Coordinator]
hello-world-server  | 192.168.1.14(hello-world-server:33423)<v1>:41001

3. Build and Run the App

In a different terminal, navigate to the working directory of spring-for-apache-geode-examples/hello-world, and build the application

./gradlew build

then run the application

./gradlew bootRun

We are running a Gradle task so you will most likely see the executing progress bar stop around 75% when the app is up and running.

Now that the application has started, open a browser and go to (http://localhost:8080).

You should see something similar to the below, which represents an artificial time delay simulating a database query.

key: hello

value: 2019-10-01T16:17:51.557 (this will be your current date & time)

time to look up: 3057ms (quantity of time that it took to acquire the key-value pair).

Refresh the page and you should see something similar to

key: hello

value: 2019-10-01T16:17:51.557 (this will be your current date & time)

time to look up: 6ms (quantity of time that it took to acquire the key-value pair).

Note that the time to look up has been significantly reduced. This represents the app getting the information from the cache (Apache Geode), instead of querying the database.

To confirm that your app is connected to your local cluster, in your gfsh terminal run the following commands

  • List the regions

    list regions

    You should see something similar to this, which shows that a region with the name Hello was created.

    List of regions
---------------
Hello

  • Confirm the web page timestamp has the same value as that stored in your Hello region. Run the gfsh command

    get --key hello --region=/Hello

    You should see something similar to this, where the “Value” listed in your terminal should match the “value” shown on the web page.

    Response from the gfsh command

    Result      : true
Key Class   : java.lang.String
Key         : hello
Value Class : java.lang.String
Value       : "2020-12-08T13:46:47.322"

    Shown on the Page

    key: hello
value: 2020-12-08T13:46:47.322
time to look up: 2ms

4. Stop the App and Tear Down the Apache Geode Cluster

  • Stop the *Hello, World! app.

  • Then shutdown the Apache Geode cluster - this will stop the locator and server, and delete any data you may have in the cluster.

    In your gfsh terminal run the following command

    shutdown --include-locators=true

  • Exit gfsh by typing exit.

Congratulations! Your local environment is set up and ready to develop with.

Learn More

Now that you have successfully set up your local development environment, check out some other guides