How do I set up AWS X-Ray SQL Instrumentation for Hikari based projects without using Tomcat JDBC?

The AWS Documentation for AWS X-Ray currently doesn't give any solutions for Java projects that do not use Tomcat JDBC.

In order to instrument database queries using spring-boot-data-jpa, you need to also include Tomcat JDBC as a dependency, and set up a Tomcat DataSource object along with your Hikari one, and include the XRay interceptor as a JDBC interceptor by either:

Adding it in your config using:

dataSource.setJdbcInterceptors("com.amazonaws.xray.sql.postgres.TracingInterceptor;");

As a property:

spring.datasource.jdbc-interceptors=com.amazonaws.xray.sql.postgres.TracingInterceptor

Gradle:

dependencies {
    ...
    implementation 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter'
    implementation 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-web'
    implementation 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-data-jpa'

    implementation "com.amazonaws:aws-java-sdk-core"
    implementation "com.amazonaws:aws-xray-recorder-sdk-core" // Required for core xray features
    implementation "com.amazonaws:aws-xray-recorder-sdk-spring" // Required for spring annotations
    implementation "com.amazonaws:aws-xray-recorder-sdk-sql-postgres" // required for db callouts

    implementation 'org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-jdbc:9.0.31'
    ...
}

Database Configuration (Spring):

    @Bean(name = "dataSource")
    @Primary
    @ConfigurationProperties(prefix = "spring.datasource")
    public DataSource dataSource() {
        final org.apache.tomcat.jdbc.pool.DataSource dataSource = new org.apache.tomcat.jdbc.pool.DataSource();
        dataSource.setUsername(getUsername());
        dataSource.setPassword(getPassword());
        dataSource.setUrl(POSTGRES_URL_PREFIX
                + getHost()
                + ":" + getPort()
                + "/" + getName()
                + "?stringtype=unspecified");
        dataSource.setDriverClassName(getDriver());
        dataSource.setJdbcInterceptors("com.amazonaws.xray.sql.postgres.TracingInterceptor;");

        final HikariDataSource hikariDataSource = new HikariDataSource();
        hikariDataSource.setDataSource(dataSource);

        return hikariDataSource;
    }

I find this quite clunky, and I would rather not have to have Tomcat JDBC as an additional dependency if possible.

Is there no way around this without using Tomcat?

Other notes:

Spring Boot 2.1.7
Gradle 6.0.1
AWS SDK for Java 2.4.0

Solution

It turns out that someone else had this question. The AWS developers have been working on this in a feature branch that got merged in Novemeber 2019 for SDK version 2.3.0.

I am yet to find any documentation for this new feature, so after some digging into the PR code, I managed to find that it's even more simple than the previous implementation.

Simply add the following dependency instead of the postgres specific one to your build.gradle file (or similar):

    implementation "com.amazonaws:aws-java-sdk-core:2.4.0"
    implementation "com.amazonaws:aws-xray-recorder-sdk-core:2.4.0"
    implementation "com.amazonaws:aws-xray-recorder-sdk-sql:2.4.0"

Then simply create a TracingDataSource object in your DataSource configuration, and pass it your original javax.sql.DataSource object. This should be done in whatever @Configuration annotated class you use to create your DataSource bean.

    @Bean(name = "dataSource")
    @Primary
    @ConfigurationProperties(prefix = "spring.datasource")
    public DataSource dataSource() {
        final DataSource dataSource = DataSourceBuilder
                .create()
                .username(getUsername())
                .password(getPassword())
                .url(POSTGRES_URL_PREFIX
                        + getHost()
                        + ":" + getPort()
                        + "/" + getName()
                        + "?stringtype=unspecified")
                .driverClassName(getDriver())
                .build();

        final TracingDataSource tracingDataSource = new TracingDataSource(dataSource);
        return tracingDataSource;
    }

That's all there is to it. I really hope this helps someone as I spent many hours trying to get this to work without Tomcat, plus the AWS documentation doesn't help here either.