Introduction To Spring Boot

Spring Boot is a popular open-source Java framework developed by Pivotal Software (now VMware) in 2014. It is built on top of the Spring Framework and is designed to simplify the development of standalone, production-ready applications. Spring Boot eliminates the need for complex configuration by providing auto-configuration, embedded servers, and production-ready tools. It is widely used for developing microservices, RESTful APIs, enterprise-level applications, and cloud-based systems.

Key Features of Spring Boot 

1. Auto-Configuration – Automatically configures applications based on  project dependencies. 

2. Standalone Applications – Runs without requiring an external web  server (comes with embedded servers like Tomcat, Jetty). 

3. Microservices Support – Ideal for building scalable and distributed  microservice architectures. 

4. Production-Ready Tools – Includes monitoring, health checks, and  metrics via Spring Boot Actuator. 

5. Convention over Configuration – Reduces boilerplate code by  following sensible defaults. 

6. Embedded Web Servers – Eliminates the need to deploy WAR files;  runs as a simple JAR. 

7. Spring Boot Starter Packs – Provides pre-configured dependencies for  common tasks like web, JPA, security, etc. 

8. Security Integration – Easy setup of authentication and authorization  with Spring Security. 

9. Cloud Integration – Works well with Spring Cloud for distributed  systems and cloud-native apps. 

10. Strong Community Support – Backed by a large ecosystem with  extensive documentation.