Running Derby with Spring Boot on Kubernetes

October 03, 2025

This guide shows how to deploy a Spring Boot application with Apache Derby on Kubernetes for scalable and containerized environments.

1. Prepare Spring Boot App with Derby

In application.properties:

spring.datasource.url=jdbc:derby:/app/data/derbyDB;create=true
spring.datasource.driver-class-name=org.apache.derby.jdbc.EmbeddedDriver
spring.jpa.hibernate.ddl-auto=update

Store Derby data in /app/data for persistence.

2. Create Dockerfile

FROM openjdk:17-jdk-slim
VOLUME /app/data
ARG JAR_FILE=target/*.jar
COPY ${JAR_FILE} app.jar
ENTRYPOINT ["java","-jar","/app.jar"]

Build and push the image:

mvn clean package -DskipTests
docker build -t your-dockerhub/springboot-derby .
docker push your-dockerhub/springboot-derby

3. Kubernetes Deployment

Create deployment.yml:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: springboot-derby
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: springboot-derby
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: springboot-derby
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: springboot-derby
          image: your-dockerhub/springboot-derby
          ports:
            - containerPort: 8080
          volumeMounts:
            - name: derby-storage
              mountPath: /app/data
      volumes:
        - name: derby-storage
          persistentVolumeClaim:
            claimName: derby-pvc

4. Persistent Volume Claim

pvc.yml:

apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
  name: derby-pvc
spec:
  accessModes:
    - ReadWriteOnce
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 1Gi

Apply PVC first:

kubectl apply -f pvc.yml

5. Expose Service

service.yml:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: springboot-derby-service
spec:
  type: LoadBalancer
  selector:
    app: springboot-derby
  ports:
    - port: 80
      targetPort: 8080

6. Deploy to Kubernetes

Apply all configs:

kubectl apply -f pvc.yml
kubectl apply -f deployment.yml
kubectl apply -f service.yml

Get external IP:

kubectl get svc springboot-derby-service