Overview
Spring Boot is an opinionated framework built on the Spring ecosystem that simplifies the creation of production-ready, stand-alone Spring applications. It provides convention-over-configuration defaults while maintaining full flexibility for customization.
What You’ll Learn
- Spring Boot Fundamentals - Auto-configuration, starters, and application structure
- REST API Development - Controllers, request mapping, and response handling
- Data Access - Spring Data JPA, repositories, and database integration
- Security - Authentication, authorization, and Spring Security configuration
- Testing - Unit tests, integration tests, and test containers
- Production Features - Actuator, monitoring, logging, and deployment
Platform Characteristics
Convention Over Configuration
Spring Boot eliminates boilerplate configuration through intelligent defaults and auto-configuration. Start building features immediately without extensive XML or annotation setup.
Enterprise-Grade Ecosystem
Access the complete Spring ecosystem including Spring Data, Spring Security, Spring Cloud, and Spring Batch. Build everything from simple REST APIs to complex microservices architectures.
Production-Ready Features
Spring Boot Actuator provides built-in health checks, metrics, and monitoring endpoints. Applications come ready for production deployment with minimal additional configuration.
Broad Database Support
Spring Data JPA abstracts database interactions with repository patterns supporting PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, MongoDB, and many other data stores through consistent interfaces.
Getting Started
Spring Boot development typically progresses through:
- Project Initialization - Spring Initializr and dependency management
- Core Concepts - Controllers, services, repositories, and entities
- REST API Design - Building RESTful web services
- Database Integration - JPA entities, repositories, and migrations
- Security Implementation - Authentication and authorization patterns
- Testing Strategies - Unit, integration, and end-to-end testing
- Deployment - Packaging and deployment to cloud platforms
Common Use Cases
- Enterprise REST APIs - Microservices and API backends
- Web Applications - Server-side rendered web applications with Thymeleaf
- Batch Processing - Scheduled jobs and data processing pipelines
- Cloud-Native Applications - Spring Cloud for distributed systems
- Integration Platforms - Enterprise integration patterns with Spring Integration
- Data Processing - ETL pipelines and data transformation
Next Steps
Explore the tutorials section to begin building with Spring Boot, from initial project setup through REST API development, database integration, security, and production deployment.