Are you new to Apache Camel ?GNANAGURU SATTANATHAN

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What to expect ?

I am working with Camel for the past 5 years, looking back I am able to visualize how Camel has grown so far and how I have adopted it myself.

I am seeing many new organizations adopting Camel in their infrastructure, so as many developers starting to learn it.

If you are just out of college, a decade experienced Java developer or a engineer from some other background like .Net, Php, Silicon fabrication, civil engineering,… these slides will help you on the way learning camel.

Beauty of Integration

Before jumping to Camel, Are you someone interested in learning something new all the time ? Then welcome to Integration world

Integration technologies can integrate literally anything where computers are involved.

Integrate Railways to Banks, Banks to Banks, Metrology to News station, Utility companies to Houses etc.. As they vary in domain, each one of them uses different technologies, and they are getting integrated.

Like many other integration technologies, Apache Camel is one of them. A popular, simple, well performing integration framework.

You have got more than 170 components in it, So you can learn one every month :)

Expect Simplicity

Customer requirement Camel implementation

We are trying to integrate our centralized file server with our partners message

broker system

<from uri="ftp://host:port/path" />

<to uri="jms:queue:PartnerA" />

Don’t start imagining writing 1000 lines of code, You can do integration in few lines of code. Well,

there can be super complex use cases, then there are going to be few more from and to's

Perception checkpoint

Apache Camel can be any of these

Integration Framework

Integration Tool

Integration Product

Java implementation (If you have already done so much with Java)

Open Source Integration product

Middleware

Something built on top of JVM

Whatever it is, Predominantly your code is going to have only 'from' and 'To' endpoints

Do you have Java background ?

Camel is a open source integration framework. Open source always gives you flexibility and of course Camel is built using Java. So it can be feast for many Java fans.

With Java knowledge you can build a better and sophisticated Camel application.

But If you know how a Java class looks like and how to run a Java code ? Then you have already satisfied the prerequisite. You can perceive camel as a product and start the implementation. Java expertise is no blocker for starting Camel development.

The difference

Camel

Java

Java

Camel

+

+

• To build a complete Camel application, Java is indispensable. At least it is required for writing unit test cases.

• Camel developers have already written thousands of lines of code, to make it simple and easy. Always see if you can complete the use case with what Camel provides. Rather than trying to extend the functionality using Java. Most of the enterprise use cases can be implemented just with the capabilities of Camel.

Flexibility can be a overkill

Open source products provides flexibility. You can extend or customize the products based on your enterprise needs.

Also there is no one best practice to use these products.

Utilizing flexibility is always good, but there is no point in writing a custom code if the framework already provides the same feature.

For eg: You can write a simple 'to' endpoint for sending a message to a JMS queue. OR you can call a processor, inside the processor you use a producer template for sending messages to a JMS queue.

Refer examples and tutorials, pick the easiest one to implement. That would most likely be a straight forward camel code.

Camel unit testing is awesome

Camel has wonderful unit testing support. Especially adviseWith and mock endpoints.

Try writing unit test cases for every processor involved in a route, alteast write them for every route in your camel context. Every simple xpath in a route matters, a simple change would impact your complete flow, so cover unit tests for every xpaths, setHeaders, Choice, etc.

Actually the flexibility aspect can be very useful for unit testing the routes. Route builders, Producer templates, Mock endpoints, use all of them if you want ;)

Ask Questions

Camel became very popular because of its community of users and developers. By the time scratching your head, you can parallelly post your questions to Camel Nabble or Stackoverflow(apache-camel).

Or maybe someone asked these questions already, search through these forums and google. There are plenty of articles on Camel already.

That’s it for now !

These are some of my thoughts. It's been a wonderful journey with Camel so far.

Some find it hard with Camel, Sometimes it is because of its simplicity. We won't easily trust something if it sounds so simple isn't it ?

I can try to help if you have any questions, I contribute articles to http://bushorn.com and drop your comments there.

Or you can contact me through LinkedIn or Twitter

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=gnanaguru+sattanathan