using Spring integration with spring batch - spring

Question

I have a spring batch application which reads from file , does some processing and finally write a customized output. This all happens in one step. In next step i have a tasklet which archives the input files (move to another folder). This application works fine.But, now i got a requirement to sftp output files on a remote servers where they would further processed. I got a way to sftp using spring integration where i have created a input channel which feeds to outboundchannel adapter. I put my files as payload in message and send messages to channel. The only problem i see here is that everytime I have to get the context i eed to load the spring config file, which seems kind of hackish way to do the task. Does anyone know about any way to integrate SI with SB.
Let me know if you want to see my config...
Thanks in Advance !!
code to access the same app-context without loading the spring config again
public class AppContextProvider implements ApplicationContextAware{
private static ApplicationContext ctx;
public ApplicationContext getApplicationContext() {
return ctx;
}
public void setApplicationContext(ApplicationContext appContext) throws BeansException {
ctx = appContext;
}
}
code to push the output file to sftp server
log.info("Starting transfer of outputFile : " + absoluteOutputFileName);
final File file = new File(absoluteOutputFileName);
final Message<File> message = MessageBuilder.withPayload(file).build();
AppContextProvider context = new AppContextProvider();
final MessageChannel inputChannel = context.getApplicationContext().getBean("toChannel",MessageChannel.class);
inputChannel.send(message);
log.info("transfer complete for : " + absoluteOutputFileName);

Answer 1

Take a look at the spring-batch-integration module within the Spring Batch project. In there, we have components for launching jobs via messages. In your situation, you'd FTP the file down then have the JobLaunchingMessageHandler launch the job.
You can also watch this video of a talk I co-presented at SpringOne a couple years ago on this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tiqeV07XlI

Answer 2

As Michael said, you'll definitely want to look at and leverage spring-batch-integration. We actually use Spring Integration as a wrapper of sorts to launch 100% of our Spring Batch jobs.
One use case we've found particularly useful is leveraging the spring-integration-file Inbound Channel Adapters to poll staging directories to indicate when a new batch file has landed. As the poller finds a new file, we then launch a new batch job using the input filename as a parameter.
This has been a real help when it comes to restartability, because we now have one job instance per file as opposed to having a job kick off at arbitrary intervals and then partition across however many files happen to be in the staging folder. Now if an exception occurs during processing, you can target a specific job for restart immediately rather than waiting for 99 of the 100 "good" files to finish first.