Historically, developers used to write monolithic applications that ran on a single machine without interacting with any other systems. Of course, that was long time ago (in terms of software development), and now, developers write all sorts of applications that can run on a wide range of devices such as mobile telephones, desktop computers, or remote servers that provide Platforms as a Service (PaaS).

In addition to running our applications on a range of devices, as developers, we also consume a lot of different services—some within our applications, and some purely to make our development easier and more robust. For example, we all use bug-tracking systems, and many of us use continuous integration systems or remote databases. Even something as ubiquitous as Maven is a service that we need to manage effectively while using it.

In this chapter, we'll be looking at the different services that a Java developer will typically use from within NetBeans and see how...