Architecture & ModernizationConference50min
No Country For Old APIs. Wrapping legacy Java services as MCP tools without rewriting them.
A demo-driven session on connecting AI agents to legacy Java, REST, and SOAP enterprise systems using MCP, Spring AI, and GraphQL. It tackles real brownfield challenges—auth, tool sprawl, oversized responses, and unsafe retries—and offers reusable patterns for secure, practical integration.
talk.summaryAiDisclaimer
Željko KozinaChronomill
Somewhere in your estate is a Java service old enough to vote. REST endpoints by the dozen, one SOAP relic nobody will admit to, session auth, and the person who understood it all has retired. It works, which is why nobody touches it. And now the business wants AI agents to use it.
Every enterprise is under pressure to connect AI agents to systems that were never designed for them, yet most MCP material assumes a greenfield project or a toy demo. This session addresses the situation attendees actually face: a brownfield estate of REST and SOAP services that cannot be rewritten. It is demo-driven, built on the official MCP Java SDK, Spring AI, and Spring for GraphQL, and it is honest about the failure modes: tool sprawl from auto-generation, auth translation, oversized responses, and unsafe retries against non-idempotent writes. Attendees leave with a reusable pattern set (facade first, curation over generation, read-only first, approval gates) they can apply to their own estate the following week.
Every enterprise is under pressure to connect AI agents to systems that were never designed for them, yet most MCP material assumes a greenfield project or a toy demo. This session addresses the situation attendees actually face: a brownfield estate of REST and SOAP services that cannot be rewritten. It is demo-driven, built on the official MCP Java SDK, Spring AI, and Spring for GraphQL, and it is honest about the failure modes: tool sprawl from auto-generation, auth translation, oversized responses, and unsafe retries against non-idempotent writes. Attendees leave with a reusable pattern set (facade first, curation over generation, read-only first, approval gates) they can apply to their own estate the following week.
Željko Kozina
Željko has spent over 15 years in IT, mostly consulting for banks and insurance companies, with a focus on modernising legacy systems. Along the way, he developed deep expertise in JVM-based technologies and has become a go-to voice on topics such as API design. When he's not untangling someone else's technical debt, he's happily creating his own through a growing collection of personal projects he enthusiastically starts and occasionally finishes. Željko is passionate about sharing knowledge in a way that actually sticks, which usually means keeping things practical, a little entertaining, and free of unnecessary jargon.
He is a GraphQL Ambassador and a member of the GraphQL AI Working Group
He is a GraphQL Ambassador and a member of the GraphQL AI Working Group