Spring Boot Architecture

Introduction to Spring Boot Architecture

Spring boot architecture is a module in the spring framework, where application with minimal programming efforts can be developed and is of production-grade and even be stand-alone in nature. Before discussing more on the architecture front, let us look at what spring boot is in a short detail and post that we would discuss the architecture using a diagram and more details on the same. Spring Boot is a framework that is used to create microservices. It is an open-source framework. Microservice is an architecture where developers have the flexibility of developing lightweight models and business-specific applications.

What is Spring Boot Architecture?

In this section before we move on to spring boot architecture let us look at the goals spring boot is trying to achieve so that the intuition behind the architecture is lined down clearly. Using spring boot there is no complex XML configuration and it makes easier for developers in getting started with the application. Next, we would look into the architecture of spring boot with a very basic spring boot application so that it is easy for our readers to grasp the essence of it and apply it even for complex applications when being developed. Also, one thing which needs to be kept in mind is that the configuration of a spring boot application is developed using annotation. Annotation is nothing but a form of metadata that helps in providing data about the program without being a part of the program.

So now looking at the above architecture diagram let us look at each component one by one and start explaining them.

The first component is the Spring Boot starter component which handles the dependency management. Using this component one can resolve the problem as this provides a set of dependencies made exclusively for programmers’ convenience. For example, if one needs to include all dependencies required for security, they can use spring-boot-starter-security as the artifact-id. The required dependencies are mentioned in pom.xml.

Syntax:

<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId> spring-boot-starter-security</artifactId>
</dependency>

Next in line is the auto-configuration using @EnableAutoConfiguration or @SpringBootApplication and these annotations help in automatically configuring the spring boot application being developed. For example, if there is the presence of the MySQL database in the classes defined in the application, then this autoconfiguration will configure an in-memory database.

Now that we are done with all our configuration how does the code knows where does the spring boot application starts? To have an entry point in our code for the spring boot application we use the annotation @SpringBootApplication. Now one must be wondering that we use @SpringBootApplication for auto-configuration, then how come it is used for starting point as well. So, to answer this, @SpringBootApplication does more than just auto-configuring. It autoconfigures, locates the starting point of spring boot application and @ComponentScan annotation which we will discuss next.

Now finally the flow reaches to @ComponentScan wherein all the beans and packages declared are scanned once the application is initialized. In layman terms, it means that this annotation will ask Spring to check if all the modules or components related to Spring are working fine or not and if everything looks good, it will ask them to be registered for the application being developed. One very interesting feature @ComponentScan brings in is the ability to use regex for filtering any selected type of component to be scanned. This ensures that only said components are scanned and thus reduce time in scanning unnecessary components that would never be used by the application. Along with regex, the @ComponentScan also brings in exclude filters to exclude a few components from being scanned.

Benefits of Spring Boot Architecture

 As we have seen in our earlier sections about the spring boot and details about its architecture, it becomes imperative to know where do the advantages lie in with Spring Boot. Most of the developers use spring boot to ease out the software development, Unit Testing, and integration testing process. This also eases out in terms of time by providing defaults for unit and integration testing. Now let us jump to the advantages and look into each in detail if required.

• The integration of Spring Boot with Java or Groovy is so sweet that building applications on Java or Groovy is like butter smooth.
• The development time is decreased by a huge margin and thus leading to productivity.
• A lot of boilerplate coding, annotations are skipped while using Spring Boot. Boilerplate code is the code that keeps on repeating itself in code with little or no alterations or in other words it is a repetitive code.
• Integration of the developed application with Spring ecosystem like Spring JDBC, Spring ORM is really smooth.
• “Opinionated Defaults Configuration” type of approach is followed keeping in mind the effort reduction for the developer.
• In the spring Boot itself, there are embedded HTTP servers where developers can test their web applications quickly.
• The provision of Command-line interface tools for development and testing from the command line is an added advantage for those who are comfortable with using the command line.
• The availability of a lot of plugins for using embedded and in-memory databases gives Spring Boot an upper hand for choosing for application development.

Conclusion

Finally, we come to the conclusion of this very important topic as if we need to summarize the entire intuition of Spring Boot it can be thought about as some other robot programmer which you would have hired to develop repetitive code in building applications. This robot will also keep in mind to manage the dependencies required in running your project. But if one is a programmer of the application, he or she needs to know behind the curtains code execution flow so that he or she can tweak the spring boot structure to address the business need. Although in most of the cases when there is no specific business need the project structure is typically untouched.

Recommended Articles

This is a guide to Spring Boot Architecture. Here we discuss the basic concept, syntax, architecture, and benefits of spring boot respectively. You may also look at the following articles to learn more –

1. What is the Spring Boot?
2. Spring Cloud Components
3. Spring Framework Architecture
4. Spring Boot Annotations