Using Grails Without a User Interface

Question

I’m thinking about possible alternatives for our EJB-based service level and wondered if it makes sense to use only the Grails service level and database with the Remoting Plugin or is it using a sledgehammer to crack a nut?

Speaking of Remoting Plugin: is there a standard way to create a JAR file that contains the necessary classes to make a remote call to the Grails service from an application without Spring Java?

Answer 1

Interesting idea. I do not think that would be superfluous. It's nice that your service will be very portable over protocols and deployment options (for example, place the top layer of the controller and immediately insert it). This gives you the benefits of EJB (persistence) + the ability to use Groovy and GORM.

FWIW, we use Grails as our level of service; in cases where we use its built-in (as a plug-in), in others we provide services (via controllers) as JSON or SOAP; I see RMI as a variation of what we do (without a controller layer).