Deploying a Spring Boot Banking Application with Docker

Containerizing applications is becoming increasingly important. In this guide, I’ll walk you through deploying a Spring Boot banking application using Docker, first manually and then with Docker Compose. We’ll cover everything from setting up the environment to running the application in containers.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, make sure you have:

• An AWS Account
• An Ubuntu EC2 instance (t2.medium)
• Docker installed
• Docker Compose installed
• Basic understanding of Spring Boot and MySQL
• (I already used vagrant box my local environment)

Project Overview

Our banking application is built with:

• Spring Boot (Java)
• MySQL Database
• Maven for build management
• Docker for containerization

Setup My Local Using Vangrant

• cloning the repo from github and navigating to project code using git clone commad

Aungs-MacBook-Pro:cloud-native-box aungkohtet$ git clone https://github.com/aungkohtat/banking-app-project.git
Cloning into 'banking-app-project'...
warning: You appear to have cloned an empty repository.
Aungs-MacBook-Pro:cloud-native-box aungkohtet$ cd banking-app-project/
Aungs-MacBook-Pro:banking-app-project aungkohtet$ ls -la
total 56
drwxr-xr-x  10 aungkohtet  staff    320 Oct 28 09:06 .
drwxr-xr-x  28 aungkohtet  staff    896 Oct 28 09:05 ..
drwxr-xr-x   9 aungkohtet  staff    288 Oct 28 09:04 .git
-rw-r--r--@  1 aungkohtet  staff    905 Oct 28 07:51 Dockerfile
-rw-r--r--@  1 aungkohtet  staff   2781 Oct 28 07:51 README.md
-rw-r--r--@  1 aungkohtet  staff   1940 Oct 28 07:51 docker-compose.yml
drwxr-xr-x   5 aungkohtet  staff    160 Oct 28 07:52 images
-rw-r--r--@  1 aungkohtet  staff  10666 Oct 28 07:51 mvnw
-rw-r--r--@  1 aungkohtet  staff   2503 Oct 28 07:51 pom.xml
drwxr-xr-x   4 aungkohtet  staff    128 Oct 28 07:52 src
Aungs-MacBook-Pro:banking-app-project aungkohtet$ 

Part 1: Manual Deployment with Docker

Step 1: Create the Dockerfile

First, let’s create a multi-stage Dockerfile to optimize our build:

# Stage 1: Build Environment
FROM maven:3.8.3-openjdk-17 AS builder
WORKDIR /app
COPY . /app
RUN mvn clean install -DskipTests=true

# Stage 2: Production Environment
FROM openjdk:17-jdk-alpine
COPY --from=builder /app/target/*.jar /app/target/bankapp.jar
EXPOSE 8080
ENTRYPOINT ["java", "-jar", "/app/target/bankapp.jar"]

Step 2: Set Up Docker Infrastructure

1. Create a volume for MySQL data:

docker volume create mysql-bankapp

1. Create a network for container communication:

docker network create bankapp

1. Run MySQL container:

docker run -d --name mysql 
  -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=Test@123 
  -e MYSQL_DATABASE=BankDB 
  --network=bankapp 
  mysql:latest

Step 3: Build and Run the Application

1. Build the application image:

docker build -t bankapp-mini .

1. Run the application container:

docker run -d --name bankapp-mini 
  -e SPRING_DATASOURCE_USERNAME="root" 
  -e SPRING_DATASOURCE_URL="jdbc:mysql://mysql:3306/BankDB?useSSL=false&allowPublicKeyRetrieval=true&serverTimezone=UTC" 
  -e SPRING_DATASOURCE_PASSWORD="Test@123" 
  --network=bankapp 
  -p 8080:8080 
  bankapp-mini:latest

1. Now we are ready to see our banking application
2. Which works properly, all functions works properly which you can see in images
3. take a look of images to see output :

Login

-Register Account

My Dashboard

Deposit

withdraw

transfer money

Transaction History

• Now stoping and deleting the exisiting container of bankapp-mini using command

docker stop 4f35135bde6c && docker rm 4f35135bde6c

Part 2: Deployment with Docker Compose

Now building same application by creating docker-compose.yml

Step 1: Create docker-compose.yml

Create a docker-compose.yml file to simplify deployment:

version: "3.8"

services:
  mysql:
    image: mysql:latest
    container_name: mysql
    environment:
      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: Test@123
      MYSQL_DATABASE: BankDB
    volumes:
      - mysql-bankapp:/var/lib/mysql
    networks:
      - bankapp
    restart: always
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "mysqladmin", "ping", "-h", "localhost", "-uroot", "-pTest@123"]
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 3
      start_period: 30s

  bankapp:
    image: bankapp-mini
    container_name: bankapp-mini
    environment:
      SPRING_DATASOURCE_USERNAME: root
      SPRING_DATASOURCE_URL: jdbc:mysql://mysql:3306/BankDB?useSSL=false&allowPublicKeyRetrieval=true&serverTimezone=UTC
      SPRING_DATASOURCE_PASSWORD: Test@123
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"
    depends_on:
      - mysql
    networks:
      - bankapp
    restart: always

volumes:
  mysql-bankapp:

networks:
  bankapp:

Step 2: Deploy with Docker Compose

docker compose up

Dashboard

Key Features of Our Docker Setup

1. Multi-Stage Builds: We use multi-stage builds to keep our final image size small by separating the build environment from the runtime environment.
2. Volume Management: Persistent storage for MySQL data ensures we don’t lose data when containers restart.
3. Network Isolation: Custom network ensures secure communication between containers.
4. Health Checks: MySQL container includes health checks to ensure the database is ready before the application starts.
5. Environment Variables: Configuration is handled through environment variables, making the setup flexible and secure.

Security Considerations

1. Configure AWS security groups to only allow necessary ports (8080 for the application).
2. Use environment variables for sensitive data instead of hardcoding values.
3. Implement proper database credentials and access controls.

Common Issues and Solutions

1. Connection Issues: If the application can’t connect to MySQL, ensure both containers are on the same network and the MySQL container is healthy.
2. Port Conflicts: If port 8080 is already in use, map to a different port in your docker-compose.yml.
3. Volume Permissions: If MySQL can’t write to the volume, check volume permissions and ownership.

Conclusion

Docker and Docker Compose significantly simplify the deployment of Spring Boot applications. While manual deployment gives you more control, Docker Compose offers a more maintainable and reproducible solution. Choose the approach that best fits your needs, considering factors like environment complexity and team expertise.

Remember to always follow security best practices and properly manage your AWS resources to avoid unnecessary costs.

Additional Resources

The complete source code for this project is available on GitHub at: my github repo