The Spring framework is the most popular Java framework in the world. Much of this popularity and broad usage comes from the following core technologies and features:

Spring Cloud is a framework for building robust cloud applications through handling many of the common issues around migrating over to a distributed system. Developers can focus on one issue at a time and new improvements to parts of the applications can be introduced without affecting other parts.

Applications built with Spring Cloud can work in various distributed environments including bare metal servers and managed cloud platforms. Spring Cloud provides comprehensive out-of-the-box features to tackle common use-cases and related issues through:

Spring Cloud offers several projects for working with various technologies, cloud providers, and more. The most popular of these include Spring Cloud Netflix, Spring Cloud Bus, Spring Cloud Functions for serverless code execution, Spring Cloud Azure, Spring Cloud Kubernetes, and dozens more.

Spring Cloud Data Flow is a set of cloud-native tools and features used to build data pipelines and batch processes that work in real time. Cloud Data Flow can be used for a wide range of data processing tasks from simple use cases such as importing and exporting data, to complex tasks like predictive analysis.

This microservice-based data and stream processing toolkit is made for Kubernetes and Cloud Foundry. Microservices can be easily developed and tested, there are various pre-built microservices to use for a quick start, and it all comes open-source under the Apache license. You can work with multiple programming languages, follow well structured guides and supporting documentation, and use a host of familiar tools that are easy to set up and customize.

Spring Security is the go-to security framework for powerful, customizable, and easily extensible access control, authentication, and security against common attacks for applications. Spring security is the primary choice for application-level security for Spring web applications as it integrates well with Spring Web MVC.

Java Spring is used to build and power a wide range of applications at any scale, from mobile apps to large-scale, enterprise-grade applications and systems. Java Spring is a broad platform made up of many technologies, frameworks, sub-frameworks, and toolkits to offer a flexible, fast, and secure Java development environment.

Below we explore several of the main real-world use cases for Java Spring, along with some of the technologies and tools involved.

Reactive processing enables developers to build asynchronous, non-blocking Spring applications that efficiently handle back-pressure. Reactive programming that handles back-pressure is great for improving resilience in decoupled, microservice-based applications. Reactive programming is the basis of Spring WebFlux and makes effective use of Spring Data’s reactive repositories.

Spring Cloud helps ease the complexity of working with distributed systems through providing tools to mitigate issues that arise at the network layer for cloud-native applications. These tools include service discovery and tracing, external configuration, statelessness, and many more.

Spring Cloud provides an API gateway to handle routing for messages, manage load throttling, hide services when necessary, and much more. Spring Cloud Gateway gives developers accurate and effective control over the app’s API layer, client-side load balancing, simplifies maintenance and configuration, and much more.

With the help of Spring WebFlux and Spring Security, you can build fast and secure web applications with minimal configuration and boilerplate code. Applications can get off the ground quickly thanks to embedded application servers, simple data access tools and support, and provides industry-standard security protocols (OAuth, LDAP, etc.).

Spring offers various production ready features to get applications up and running as quickly and efficiently as possible – whatever you are building. Supported languages include Java, Kotlin, and Groovy, and Spring provides a streamlined, modern way to build server-side HTML applications, REST APIs, and event-based systems.

Serverless applications let developers focus on business and code logic without having to worry about scaling, runtimes, security, resource allocation, etc. It helps them spend more time on logic as opposed to infrastructure. Using modern cloud computing, applications can scale down to zero, which saves costs. The cloud platform handles all of the scaling, initialization, and stopping.

Going serverless is supported whether you are using Spring Data, Spring Integrations for enterprise level integration patterns, reactive programming with Spring Framework and Project Reactor, along with using Function as a Service (FaaS) with Spring Cloud Function.

Build, launch, and scale standalone applications efficiently, saving both time and resources, and leverage the advantages of cutting edge FaaS and serverless platforms. Spring Cloud supports the most common FaaS services such as Amazon Lambda, Microsoft Azure, Apache OpenWhisk, and more.

Spring can build event-driven applications that reflect how businesses run in the real world – with thousands of small changes happening all of the time. Spring supports building non-blocking, asynchronous applications, with the ability to choose from a variety of event-driven options and architectures. With Spring, applications can keep up with the constantly evolving nature of business, even at enterprise scales using:

With Spring Cloud Data Stream, Spring Cloud Data Flow, Spring Cloud Function, Spring Integration, and more, developers can build Spring applications that handle requests efficiently, scaling as needed using serverless computing, and integrate seamlessly.

Java Spring is a broad set of frameworks, sub-frameworks, tools, features, and patterns that target a huge range of real-world use cases. While no programming framework or architectural pattern is a “magic bullet” solution, a carefully chosen platform can be very impactful in terms of resource efficiency, streamlining, testing, and for building modern, fast, and scalable applications.

When applied to the right situation, Java Spring is flexible, enhances productivity, allows for quickly getting applications off the ground and deployed, and enables robust security. Below we look at some of the main benefits of using Java Spring to build your applications.

Combining Spring Boot and Spring Cloud, applications can be built and deployed to the cloud efficiently and with minimal configuration. Auto-configured and embedded web servers make applications built for serverless deployment streamlined and quick to get off the ground.

Spring Cloud offers a robust and approachable feature set that includes comprehensive and secure libraries, design patterns, and templates to reduce boilerplate code and make time for developers to focus more on the application logic.

Many real-world enterprise applications need non-blocking applications that scale up and down cost effectively and with minimal manual configuration and input required. Spring provides extensive tools and optimizations right out of the box for building applications that start, stop, and scale effortlessly.

By taking care of much of the underlying infrastructure, sub-frameworks like Spring Boot and Spring Cloud free up developers’ time to focus more on developing and refining business and application logic. This is further aided by Spring-provided features and tool sets including auto-configured and embedded web servers, fast iteration with LiveReload (Spring DevTools), and quick startup times with Spring Initializr.

Spring’s platform is built around enhancing development productivity and through offering an mostly-opinionated and streamlined way to quickly build flexible applications that can keep up with modern business needs and goals.

Spring Security provides various tools and integration with popular and trusted security schemes such as OAuth 2.1 and OpenID Connect 1.0). Spring is known and trusted by its community for quickly attending to security concerns and to patch vulnerabilities.

Spring also monitors 3rd party libraries and dependencies closely. Frequent updates are issues to keep data security and applications safe. Serverless applications with Spring Cloud and Spring Cloud Function make security and safety core concerns.

The Java Spring community is enormous, spanning across the globe and still growing. With extensive community support and documentation, Spring provides a well-worn path to developing modern applications at any scale. Community support includes:

Java Spring also has several Spring project communities for integration with popular cloud providers and platforms, including:

Java Spring is by far the most robust, flexible, and popular Java framework for reasons important to both the developer and the business. Modern web applications need to be able to scale efficiently and keep up with demanding and evolving business needs at any scale, particularly at the enterprise level.

With Java Spring’s flexibility and ability to handle complex applications, streaming data, and cloud-based applications, it has become the go-to platform for scalable, performant, and secure Java applications!