Building a Simple Distributed Service with SpringBoot and Dubbo

Before the hands‑on part, the article introduces essential concepts: what a distributed system is, the role of RPC, and an overview of Apache Dubbo as a high‑performance Java RPC framework.

It then describes Dubbo's architecture, listing the Provider, Consumer, Registry, Monitor, and Container nodes, and explains the service registration and invocation flow.

Next, the tutorial walks through setting up Zookeeper as the service registry on a CentOS 7.4 server, covering download, extraction, configuration of the data directory, and starting the Zookeeper server.

wget https://archive.apache.org/dist/zookeeper/zookeeper-3.4.12/zookeeper-3.4.12.tar.gz

tar -zxvf zookeeper-3.4.12-alpha.tar.gz

mv zookeeper-3.4.12 zookeeper

rm -rf zookeeper-3.4.12.tar.gz

mkdir data

cp zoo_sample.cfg zoo.cfg

vim zoo.cfg   # set dataDir=/usr/local/zookeeper/data

./zkServer.sh start

After Zookeeper is ready, the guide creates the dubbo‑interface Maven module, defines a simple HelloService interface, and packages it as a JAR.

package top.snailclimb.service;
public interface HelloService {
    String sayHello(String name);
}

The dubbo‑provider project is then created as a SpringBoot application, adding dependencies for Dubbo, Zookeeper, and the interface module. The application.properties file configures the Dubbo application name, registry address, and server port.

# configuration
server.port=8333
spring.dubbo.application.name=dubbo-provider
spring.dubbo.application.registry=zookeeper://<ip>:2181

The provider implements the interface and annotates the class with Dubbo's @Service and Spring's @Component:

package top.snailclimb.service.impl;
import com.alibaba.dubbo.config.annotation.Service;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;
import top.snailclimb.service.HelloService;
@Component
@Service
public class HelloServiceImpl implements HelloService {
    @Override
    public String sayHello(String name) {
        return "Hello " + name;
    }
}

The main class enables Dubbo auto‑configuration:

package top.snailclimb;
import com.alibaba.dubbo.spring.boot.annotation.EnableDubboConfiguration;
import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
@SpringBootApplication
@EnableDubboConfiguration
public class DubboProviderApplication {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(DubboProviderApplication.class, args);
    }
}

Similarly, the dubbo‑consumer project is set up, adding the same dependencies and configuring Dubbo. A simple REST controller uses @Reference to inject the remote HelloService and expose an endpoint:

package top.snailclimb.dubboconsumer;
import com.alibaba.dubbo.config.annotation.Reference;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;
import top.snailclimb.service.HelloService;
@RestController
public class HelloController {
    @Reference
    private HelloService helloService;
    @RequestMapping("/hello")
    public String hello() {
        String hello = helloService.sayHello("world");
        System.out.println(helloService.sayHello("SnailClimb"));
        return hello;
    }
}

The consumer's main class also enables Dubbo:

package top.snailclimb.dubboconsumer;
import com.alibaba.dubbo.spring.boot.annotation.EnableDubboConfiguration;
import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
@SpringBootApplication
@EnableDubboConfiguration
public class DubboConsumerApplication {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(DubboConsumerApplication.class, args);
    }
}

Finally, accessing http://localhost:8330/hello returns "Hello world" and the console prints "Hello SnailClimb", confirming that the SpringBoot‑Dubbo distributed service works as expected.