Getting Started with VMware GemFire for TAS

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

Create A VMware 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 GemFire plans. Take note of the service plan as this will be your <PLAN-NAME> in the following step. Note that VMware GemFire was previously called Pivotal Cloud Cache).

  3. Create a VMware 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 VMware 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

Apps Manger

Apps Manager is a user interface that must be turned on by the operator of the foundation.

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

  2. Click on the Services tab.
     

3. Click on the ADD A SERVICE button.
 

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

       5. Choose one of the available plans and click SELECT PLAN.
 

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

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

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).

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 VMware GemFire service instance is set up correctly.

What You’ll Need

  • The Hello, World! example.
  • JDK 8, 11, or 17. JDK 17 is required to use Spring Boot 3.0 or higher.
  • Spring Boot 2.7 or above
  • Spring Boot for VMware GemFire
  • VMware GemFire for TAS 1.14.5+
  • A Broadcom Support account

1. Download the Hello, World! Example

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

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

2. Edit the manifest.yaml File

  • Navigate to the spring-for-gemfire-examples/hello-world directory.
  • Open the manifest.yml file.
  • Replace the string <your-gemfire-for-tas-service-instance-name> with the name of your VMware 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 VMware 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 of the fields listed will be the route. In a browser copy and paste the route from cf push.

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, VMware GemFire, instead of querying the database.

Delete the app and the Service Instance

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

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

  • Delete the app first, so that the VMware 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 VMware 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 VMware GemFire. You will need to create a new VMware GemFire Service Instance when working with your own application.

Learn More

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

  • Create an application that utilizes Spring Boot for VMware GemFire and Spring Session for session state caching.