What is the Spring Framework?

Spring is the most popular Java framework for developing enterprise applications. Millions of developers all over the world use Spring Framework to create high performing, easily testable, and reusable code.

Spring framework is an open source Java platform. Released in June 2003 by Rod Johnson under the Apache 2.0 license.

Spring is a lightweight framework that provides the best ways to use other frameworks, such as Struts, Hibernate, EJB, JSF, and Tapestry. It helps developers solve real-time technical problems and contains many modules, such as WEB MVC, IOC, DAO, AOP, Context, and ORM.

Spring’s core features can be used to develop any Java application, but it also has extensions for building web applications on top of Java EE. Spring aims to make J2EE development easier and promote good programming practices by allowing developers to use plain old Java objects (POJOs) programming model.

How Spring Work?

A Spring based application, built on layered architecture, is typically made up of three main layers:

• The presentation layer (UI) shows content to users and handles their interactions.
• The business logic layer implements the core functionality of the application.
• The data access layer manages how data is retrieved and stored.

Each layer of a Spring application relies on the other layers in order to function. For example, the presentation layer may need to call on the business logic layer, which in turn interacts with the data access layer. These interactions between layers are known as dependencies, and they create couplings between the different components of the system.

Spring’s ability to perform dependency injection is a key feature that allows developers to build loosely coupled architectures. Spring supports multiple types of dependency injection, including constructor-based injection, setter-based injection, and field-based injection. Spring understands different Java annotations and use them to ensure that all created instances have the dependencies they need.

For the Spring Framework to create objects, populate and manage their dependencies, Spring programmers simply tell Spring which objects to manage and what their dependencies for each class through annotations. For example, the @component annotation lets Spring know which classes to manage, marks objects as managed components and identifies classes for dependency injection. Additionally, the @Autowired annotation tells Spring how to handle the instantiation of the class and to start search for that dependency among components and classes to find a match.

Spring Framework Modules

The Spring Framework is divided into modules, making it easy to select and use the parts you need in any application.

• Core: Provides core features such as dependency injection, internationalization, validation, and aspect-oriented programming.
• Data Access: Supports data access through JTA, JPA, and JDBC.
• Web: Supports both Servlet API (Spring MVC) and Reactive API (Spring WebFlux), as well as WebSockets, STOMP, and WebClient.
• Integration: Supports integration with Enterprise Java through JMS, JMX, and RMI.
• Testing: Provides wide support for unit and integration testing through mock objects, test fixtures, context management, and caching.

 

Spring Ecosystem

What makes Spring even more valuable is its strong ecosystem of projects that are built on top of the Spring framework.

While there are many Spring projects, here are a few worth mentioning:

• Boot: Provides a set of pre-configured templates for fast creating various projects based on Spring. It makes it easy to create standalone Spring applications with embedded Tomcat or a similar container.
• Cloud: Provides support for easily developing common distributed system patterns, such as service discovery, circuit breakers, and API gateways. It helps reduce the effort required to deploy these patterns in local, remote, or even managed platforms.
• Security: Provides a robust and customizable mechanism for developing authentication and authorization for Spring-based projects. With minimal declarative support, it provides protection against common attacks, such as session fixation, click-jacking, and cross-site request forgery.
• Mobile: Provides capabilities for detecting the device and adapting the application behavior accordingly. Additionally, it supports device-aware view management for optimal user experience, site preference management, and site switcher.
• Batch: Provides a lightweight framework for developing batch applications for enterprise systems, such as data archival. It has intuitive support for scheduling, restart, skipping, collecting metrics, and logging. Additionally, it supports scaling up for high-volume jobs through optimization and partitioning.

 

This is just a brief overview of what Spring has to offer. It should give a good understanding of Spring’s organization and breadth.

Spring Framework Benefits

• Usability:  One of the main reasons why Spring is so popular is because it is easy to use. Spring offers many configuration options and uses the “Convention over Configuration” approach, which makes it easy for developers to get started and configure exactly what they need. Additionally, Spring has excellent documentation and tutorials to help developers get on board.
• Modularity: Developers can choose to use the entire Spring framework or just the modules they need. Additionally, developers can include other Spring projects depending on their needs. Spring also supports other frameworks, such as Hibernate and Struts.
• Compatibility: Spring supports all of the Jakarta EE technologies, and often improves upon the standard specification. For example, Spring supports JPA-based repositories, making it easy to switch providers. Spring also supports industry specifications such as Reactive Streams and more.
• Testability: Spring is designed to be easy to test. Spring applications are mostly composed of plain old Java objects (POJOs), which makes unit testing relatively simple. Spring also provides mock objects for scenarios such as MVC, where unit testing can be more difficult.
• Maturity: Spring has a long history of innovation, adoption, and standardization. Over the years, it has become a mature and reliable solution for developing large-scale enterprise applications. Spring is also actively developed and maintained, with support for new language features and enterprise integration solutions being added on a regular basis.
• Community Support: Spring is an open source project led by Pivotal Software and backed by a large consortium of organizations and individual developers. This means that Spring remains innovative and up-to-date, as evidenced by the number of projects under its ecosystem.

 

Why Spring Framework?

Java programs are complex and feature many components that are dependent on the underlying OS for their appearance and properties. Spring is a secure, affordable, and flexible framework that improves coding efficiency and reduces overall application development time by using system resources efficiently.

Spring takes care of the complex and time-consuming configuration work, so developers can focus on the code that matters: the business logic. Spring handles the infrastructure, so developers can focus on the application itself. Spring helps create scalable, secure, and robust business-based web applications.

Conclusion

Spring is a popular Java framework for developing enterprise applications. It is easy to use, modular, compatible, testable, mature, and has a large and active community. Spring provides a wide range of features and tools that help developers build high-performance, scalable, and secure applications.

Spring is a good choice for developing any Java application, but it is especially well-suited for enterprise applications. Spring’s modular architecture makes it easy to use only the features you need, and its large ecosystem of projects provides additional functionality and support.