AOP with Spring and the X-Ray SDK for Java

This topic describes how to use the X-Ray SDK and the Spring Framework to instrument your application without changing its core logic. This means that there is now a non-invasive way to instrument your applications running remotely in AWS.

Configuring Spring

You can use Maven or Gradle to configure Spring to use AOP to instrument your application.

If you use Maven to build your application, add the following dependency in your pom.xml file.

<dependency> 
     <groupId>com.amazonaws</groupId> 
     <artifactId>aws-xray-recorder-sdk-spring</artifactId> 
     <version>2.11.0</version> 
</dependency>

For Gradle, add the following dependency in your build.gradle file.

compile 'com.amazonaws:aws-xray-recorder-sdk-spring:2.11.0'

Configuring Spring Boot

In addition to the Spring dependency described in the previous section, if you’re using Spring Boot, add the following dependency if it’s not already on your classpath.

Maven:

<dependency> 
     <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId> 
     <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-aop</artifactId> 
     <version>2.5.2</version> 
</dependency>

Gradle:

compile 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-aop:2.5.2'

Adding a tracing filter to your application

Add a Filter to your WebConfig class. Pass the segment name to the AWSXRayServletFilter constructor as a string. For more information about tracing filters and instrumenting incoming requests, see Tracing incoming requests with the X-Ray SDK for Java.

package myapp;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
import javax.servlet.Filter;
import com.amazonaws.xray.javax.servlet.AWSXRayServletFilter;

@Configuration
public class WebConfig {

  @Bean
  public Filter TracingFilter() {
    return new AWSXRayServletFilter("Scorekeep");
  }
}

Jakarta Support

Spring 6 uses Jakarta instead of Javax for its Enterprise Edition. To support this new namespace, X-Ray has created a parallel set of classes that live in their own Jakarta namespace.

For the filter classes, replace javax with jakarta. When configuring a segment naming strategy, add jakarta before the naming strategy class name, as in the following example:

package myapp;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
import jakarta.servlet.Filter;
import com.amazonaws.xray.jakarta.servlet.AWSXRayServletFilter;
import com.amazonaws.xray.strategy.jakarta.SegmentNamingStrategy;

@Configuration
public class WebConfig {
    @Bean
    public Filter TracingFilter() {
        return new AWSXRayServletFilter(SegmentNamingStrategy.dynamic("Scorekeep"));
    }
}

Annotating your code or implementing an interface

Your classes must either be annotated with the @XRayEnabled annotation, or implement the XRayTraced interface. This tells the AOP system to wrap the functions of the affected class for X-Ray instrumentation.

Activating X-Ray in your application

To activate X-Ray tracing in your application, your code must extend the abstract class BaseAbstractXRayInterceptor by overriding the following methods.

If your project is using Spring Data JPA, consider extending from AbstractXRayInterceptor instead of BaseAbstractXRayInterceptor.

Example

The following code extends the abstract class BaseAbstractXRayInterceptor.

@Aspect
@Component
public class XRayInspector extends BaseAbstractXRayInterceptor {    
    @Override    
    protected Map<String, Map<String, Object>> generateMetadata(ProceedingJoinPoint proceedingJoinPoint, Subsegment subsegment) throws Exception {      
        return super.generateMetadata(proceedingJoinPoint, subsegment);    
    }    
  
  @Override    
  @Pointcut("@within(com.amazonaws.xray.spring.aop.XRayEnabled) && bean(*Controller)")    
  public void xrayEnabledClasses() {}
  
}

The following code is a class that will be instrumented by X-Ray.

@Service
@XRayEnabled
public class MyServiceImpl implements MyService {    
    private final MyEntityRepository myEntityRepository;    
    
    @Autowired    
    public MyServiceImpl(MyEntityRepository myEntityRepository) {        
        this.myEntityRepository = myEntityRepository;    
    }    
    
    @Transactional(readOnly = true)    
    public List<MyEntity> getMyEntities(){        
        try(Stream<MyEntity> entityStream = this.myEntityRepository.streamAll()){            
            return entityStream.sorted().collect(Collectors.toList());        
        }    
    }
}

If you've configured your application correctly, you should see the complete call stack of the application, from the controller down through the service calls, as shown in the following screen shot of the console.