Getting Started with Tanzu GemFire on TAS

This guide will walk you through creating and testing a Tanzu GemFire service instance on the Tanzu Application Service (TAS) using a Hello, World! client application.

Create A Tanzu GemFire Service Instance

Option 1: Create the service instance using the cf CLI

Starting in a terminal

  1. Run cf login, and create or target your organization’s space.

  2. Run cf marketplace -s p-cloudcache to list your available VMware Tanzu GemFire plans. Take note of the service plan as this will be your <PLAN-NAME> in the following step. Note that Tanzu GemFire was previously called Pivotal Cloud Cache).

  3. Create a Tanzu GemFire service instance within the space with the following command:

    cf create-service p-cloudcache <PLAN-NAME> <SERVICE-INSTANCE-NAME>

    • Replace <PLAN-NAME> with one the plan names from step 2.
    • Replace <SERVICE-INSTANCE-NAME> with your own custom name for your service instance.

    The <SERVICE-INSTANCE-NAME> can include alpha-numeric characters, hyphens, and underscores. This is also the name you will use in your manifest.yml to bind your client application to the service instance.

  4. If successful you will see

    OK

    Create in progress. Use 'cf services' or 'cf service <your-service-name>' to check operation status.

  5. Confirm the Tanzu GemFire service instance has been created by running

    $ cf services

    This command outputs the current status of the service instance creation. In the last operation column you will either see create in progress if it is still be created or create succeeded when it is ready to be used.

    It can take several minutes for the service instance creation to complete.

Option 2: Create the service instance using Tanzu Application Service apps manager

  1. Within your org, create a space or navigate to the space that will hold your Tanzu GemFire service instance.

  2. Click on the Services tab. Services Link in Apps Manager

  3. Click on the ADD A SERVICE button. Add A Service Button in Apps Manager

  4. Click on Tanzu GemFire. Click on Tanzu GemFire in Apps Manager

  5. Choose one of the available plans and click SELECT PLAN. Select A Plan in Apps Manager

  6. Fill in the Instance Name with a custom name for your service instance. The service instance name can include alpha-numeric characters, hyphens, and underscores. This is the name you will use in your manifest.yml. (Alternatively, if you have already pushed your application to your space can select it in the “Bind to App” dropdown - however we prefer to bind our applications through a manifest.yml file)

    Click CREATE

    Click CREATE in Apps Manager

  7. After clicking create you will see Tanzu GemFire service instance provisioning begin and in the Last Operation column it will say create in progress.

    Create in progress in Apps Manager

It can take several minutes for the service instance creation to complete.

  1. Once complete you will see create succeeded under the Last Operation column (you may need to refresh the page for the status to update).

    Create succeeded in Apps Manager

Set Up Your Tanzu Application Service Environment

This section will guide you through testing a Hello, World! client application on the Tanzu Application Service to confirm that your Tanzu GemFire service instance 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
  • A running Tanzu GemFire service instance on TAS

1. Download the Hello, World! Example

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

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

2. Edit the manifest.yaml File

  • Navigate to the spring-for-apache-geode-examples/hello-world directory.
  • Open the manifest.yml file.
  • Replace the string <your-tanzu-gemfire-service> with the name of your Tanzu GemFire service instance. If you’re not sure of the instance name, run the cf services command.

3. Push your application to TAS

  • In a terminal, navigate to the hello-world directory.
  • Build the application with ./gradlew build
  • Push the application to your TAS environment using cf push

The cf push operation will bind the Hello,World! app to the Tanzu GemFire service instance named in your manifest.yaml file and then start the app.

When the app is up and running, the cf push command should output information about the app in the terminal. One the fields listed will be the route. In a browser copy and paste the [route from cf push]/hello.

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, Tanzu GemFire, instead of querying the database.

Delete the app and the Service Instance

There are two ways to delete the app and the Tanzu GemFire service instance

Option 1: Delete the app and service using the cf cli

  • Delete the app first, so that the Tanzu GemFire service instance does not have any app bound to it with cf delete helloworld -r -f
  • Delete the service by running the cf delete-service <SERVICE-INSTANCE-NAME> command. Make sure to replace <SERVICE-INSTANCE-NAME> with the name of your service instance.
  • Answer yes when prompted

Option 2: Delete the app and service using Apps Manager

  1. Navigate to the org and space that has your Tanzu GemFire service instance and click on the App tab.
  2. Click on the name of the app.
  3. Click on the Settings tab.
  4. Click on DELETE APP (at the bottom of the page), and confirm that you want to delete the app.
  5. Click on the Service tab.
  6. Click on the name of your service instance.
  7. Click on the Settings tab.
  8. Click on the DELETE SERVICE INSTANCE button, and confirm the deletion.

Congratulations! You’re ready to start using Tanzu GemFire. You will need to create a new Tanzu GemFire Service Instance when working with your own application.

Learn More

Now that you have successfully created a running Tanzu GemFire service instance, check out some other guides.

  • You can get started by implementing the cache-aside pattern which will improve the read performance of your application.

  • Create an application that utilizes Spring Boot for Apache Geode and Spring Session for session state caching.