JTS Docker Container

So last week our new Docker image became available on https://hub.docker.com. It is a standalone JTS service running the premiere open source transaction manager written by the Narayana team.

In addition to that, it comes with a helper image - JacORB name server, which provides an easy way of sharing the transaction managers IOR.

The transaction manager image can be found here:

https://hub.docker.com/r/jboss/jts-transaction-service.

And the JacORB name server image can be found here:

https://hub.docker.com/r/jboss/jacorb-name-server. 

Usage

This image comes with a quickstart example available on Narayana Github page: https://github.com/jbosstm/quickstart/tree/master/jts-docker. But here I’ll provide a brief extract from the quickstart to explain how the JTS Docker image can be used.

We use Docker linking technology to make interaction between JTS and JacORB containers more smooth. Thus JTS container expects certain environments to be available. Not to worry though, they are automatically created by Docker.

Here is how to start the name server container:

docker run -p 3528:3528 -it --name jacorb-name-server jboss/jacorb-name-server

And this is how to start JTS container on Linux, linking it with the name server:

docker run -p 4711:4711 -it --link jacorb-name-server:jacorb-name-server --name jts-transaction-service jboss/jts-transaction-service

Or if you're running on Boot2Docker start JTS container as follows:

docker run -p 4711:4711 -it -e "PROXY_IP={Boot2Docker IP}" --link jacorb-name-server:jacorb-name-server --name jts-transaction-service jboss/jts-transaction-service

And that is it. Now you can connect to the name server from your application and retrieve the IOR of the transaction manager. Pretty easy.

Of course, since Docker container storage is removed once the container is removed, this is not the best way to use any transaction manager as you will want to make sure your transactions are completed even in case of the system failure. To avoid such scenarios and make the transaction log reliable you have two options: mount a host directory or use JDBC object store.

But you can read more about that in our quickstart readme:

• https://github.com/jbosstm/quickstart/tree/master/jts-docker#mounting-local-repository-as-an-object-store.
• https://github.com/jbosstm/quickstart/tree/master/jts-docker#using-postgres-as-an-object-store.

Additionally, in the quickstart you’ll find an example of how to coordinate JacORB name server and JTS transaction service containers with Kubernetes.