66th Apache Camel release is out - its the 2.14 release

Today Apache Camel 2.14.0 hit the streets. Its our 66th release (include all patch releases) since the project was created over 7 years ago.

There is a bunch of great stuff in this release, so let me try to distill a list of 10 highlights (in no particular order)


1) Java 8 support
The 2.14.x branch marks the 1st release where we officially support Java 8. We made sure the code compiles and all tests passes on Java 8 also. We also support Java 7.

Now you may ask about all the coolness from Java 8 about lambda's and whatnot. Yeah we are looking into that for the next release to provide examples and a first cut of a Java 8 based DSL.


2) Spring 4 support
The same goes here. We now support Spring 4.x also. There is one migration effort, as Spring 3.x and 4.x is not compatible when using spring testing. So we had to introduce a camel-test-spring3 module for Spring 3.x users, and camel-test-spring is for 4.x users. Also there is a known issue in camel-test-spring about Spring 4.1.x support which we will fix in the next patch release.


3) Rest DSL
This is likely one of the most exciting new features in this release. We now offer a REST styled DSL which can be used with Java or XML. The intention is to allow end users to define REST services using a REST style with verbs such as get, post, delete etc.

Here is a small taste of it in action:

rest("/customers/")     .get("/{id}").to("direct:customerDetail")     .get("/{id}/orders").to("direct:customerOrders")     .post("/neworder").to("direct:customerNewOrder");

The DSL can be used in both Java and XML. As this is the 1st release with the Rest DSL we will of course continue to improve on this, and certainly based on the feedback from the community.


4) Netty 4.x support
We now have support for both Netty 3.x and 4.x. As we take backwards compatibility seriously we decided to leave camel-netty as-is for Netty 3.x users, and port the code to a new camel-netty4 for Netty 4.x users. The same goes for the camel-netty-http and camel-netty-http4 modules.


5) API component
Dhiraj Bodke worked on a great new API component support in camel-core, that makes creating new Camel components for APIs much easier and faster. We use this to integrated with new components such as box, linkedin, google-drive, and salesforce and what else comes in the future. He wrote a great blog about this component and how to use it. So expect many more of these API components in upcoming releases.


6) More JMX MBeans
We now also enlist producers in JMX, and as well have a registry to capture runtime usage of endpoints, which allows you to "see" which endpoints are in use, and as well how endpoints may be shared across routes, e.g. sending to queue A in route 1 and consume from queue A in route 2. All based on dynamic usage such as dynamic patterns like the recipient list.

The aim is to provide better understand how your Camel routes are being used at runtime. We will continue to improve tooling in this area such as hawtio, and the Camel Karaf commands, etc.


7) Codahale metrics
And continued from #6 we also have a new camel-metrics component to integrate with the excellent codahale metrics library. On top of that we also allow to use this to capture Camel routing statistics using codehale. This can then be used with existing codahale tooling and also with hawtio. I wrote a blog about this earlier.

The screenshot below illustrates routing information captured by camel-metrics and displayed by hawtio in the new route metrics tab which supports codahale.

camel-metrics used to capture routing statics which can be displayed in hawtio using the new route metrics tab.

8) Circuit breaker EIP
We introduce a new EIP using the circuit breaker pattern.


9) Swagger integration
We have a new camel-swagger module that in combination with the Rest DSL allows to expose an API documentation of your REST services. This can then be used with existing swagger tooling and web consoles. For example hawtio has a swagger console out of the box, such as shown below

Camel example using the new Rest DSL which offers swagger API documentation, which can be viewed using a swagger console such as offered by hawtio

10) And the usual stuff
We added 15 new components, 1 new EIP, 1 new data format, and 1 new language. And as usual a bunch of bug fixes, improvements and hardening.  And we dropped support for Java 6.


If you want to see some of the new stuff in action, then you can try the new examples. We have the camel-example-servlet-rest-tomcat. This is a plain WAR file which you can run in Apache Tomcat, Jetty, Wildfly, fabric8 or any other web container. Then you can see both the new Rest DSL, Swagger and codehale metrics in action, all in the same application. And for hawtness then try deployed hawtio as well and see what it can do as well.

The same example is also available for Karaf users by the camel-example-servlet-rest-blueprint.



You can find more details about this release in the 2.14 release notes. And if you are upgrading from a previous release, then make sure to read about the changes that may effect you.

You can get this release from Maven Central and download from the Apache Camel website.

More metrics in Apache Camel 2.14

Apache Camel 2.14 is being released later this month. There is a slight holdup due some Apache infrastructure issue which is being worked on.

This blog post is to talk about one of the new functions we have added to this release. Thanks to Lauri Kimmel who donated a camel-metrics component, we integrated with the excellent codehale metrics library.

So I took this component one step further and integrated it with the Camel routes so we have additional metrics about the route performances using codehale metrics. This allows end users to seamless feed Camel routing information together with existing data they are gathering using codehale metrics.

Also take note we have a lot of existing metrics from camel-core which of course is still around.

What codehale brings to the table is that they have additional statistical data which we do not have in camel-core.

To use the codehale metics all you need to do is:

1. add camel-metrics component
2. enable route metrics in XML or Java code

To enable in XML you declare a as shown below:

  &;t;bean id="metricsRoutePolicyFactory"
        class="org.apache.camel.component.metrics.
               routepolicy.MetricsRoutePolicyFactory"/>

And doing so in Java code is easy as well by calling this method on your CamelContext

  context.addRoutePolicyFactory(new MetricsRoutePolicyFactory());

Now performance metrics is only useable if you have a way of displaying them, and for that you can use hawtio. Notice you can use any kind of monitoring tooling which can integrate with JMX, as the metrics is available over JMX. The actual data is 100% codehale json format, where a piece of the data is shown in the figure below.

Sample of the route metrics JSON data

The next release of hawtio supports Camel 2.14 and automatic detects if you have enabled route metrics and if so, then shows a sub, where the information can be seen in real time in a graphical charts.

hawtio have detected that we have route metrics enabled, and shows a sub tab where we can see the data in real time

The screenshot above is from the new camel-example-servlet-rest-tomcat which we ship out of the box. This example demonstrates another new functionality in Camel 2.14 which is the Rest DSL (I will do a blog about that later). This example enables the route metrics out of the box, so what I did was to deploy this example together with hawtio (the hawtio-default WAR) in Apache Tomcat 8.

With hawtio you can also build custom dashboards, so here at the end I have put together a dashboard with various screens from hawtio to have a custom view of a Camel application.

hawtio dashboard with Camel route and metrics as well control panel to control the route(s), and the logs in the bottom.