[Feature]: Application Server Module

Module

New Module

Problem

As a Java test framework, it would be great for the Testcontainers project to expand into the Jakarta EE space by offering an application platform module with application containers.

This would allow application developers the ability to perform functional tests on their applications.
This would allow platform developers the ability to perform integration tests on their platform.

Solution

The solution I am proposing would be to have a new module named application-platform

With an abstract container type of ApplicationContainer

Implementations of this container would come from vendors, for example:

• IBM - Open Liberty
• Apache - Tomcat
• JBoss - Wildfly
• Oracle - Weblogic
• Eclipse - Payara

[WIP] An ApplicationContainer would contain:

abstract ApplicationContainer: 
  optional configurationFile
  optional applicationPackages (pre-compiled from src/ for functional testing)
  optional applicationArchives   (created from test/ at runtime for integration testing)
  required appContextRoot

Benefit

The benefit of having this feature would be to streamline the process of performing functional and integration testing on Jakarta EE platforms.

Alternatives

The direct alternative would be to use a generic container with a bespoke configuration.

The comprehensive alternative would be to use Microshed Testing which isn't being maintained.

The other alternative is Arquillian which has its own concept of "containers" which doesn't use docker as the underlying technology.

Would you like to help contributing this feature?

Yes

Start by reviewing existing Testcontainers module conventions and the proposed application-platform scope in this issue. Done would require an agreed design for ApplicationContainer, its configuration and application inputs, plus a clear path for vendor implementations such as Open Liberty, Tomcat, WildFly, WebLogic, and Payara.