Why choose spring boot for the java web applications
Spring Boot just takes away all these pains and let you write the code which matters i.e. application code. All of the Spring Boot features which I mentioned e.g. auto-configuration, Starter POMs or Starter dependency and Spring Boot CLI aims to simplify Java development with Spring.
Spring Boot Initializer
Spring Initializer is another feature of Spring Boot which solves the problem with respect to project structure. It's a web application which allows you to generate a Maven or Gradle project with Java, Kotlin or Groovy and Spring Boot.
All you need to specify is to provide Project MetaData in GUI e.g. name of your project, Group, Artifact etc. It also allows you to choose a starter dependency from a big list e.g. web, JPA, or security starter.
The Spring Initializer project can be accessed at https://start.spring.io/. Once you create a project you can download the Zip file and then open into an IDE like Eclipse or IntelliJ IDEA as explained in Spring Boot Essential course by Nelson Djalo. You can then edit this sample project to put your code.
As per my experience, one of the common problem many Java and Spring developers faces is to start a project. Many of them are clueless about whether to put your Java file, resource file etc.
Though Maven, Gradle, IntelliJ IDEA, and Eclipse help you to give basic structure you still need to proficient on those two skills to get a head start and if you are not familiar with Maven or your IDE, it can be a nightmare.
Spring Boot Initaizer solves this problem and makes it easy to create a Spring-based Java application without really knowing about a lot of internal details of Spring framework.
That's all about some of the essential features of Spring Boot which Java developers should know. These features really make working with Java and Spring fun and productive and that's why more and more companies are adopting Spring Boot for Java development.
Java developers with Spring Boot experience is also in good demand and if you are looking for your next job as Java web developer then Spring Boot skills can really make a difference.
Actuator
The actuator is another awesome feature of Spring Boot which allows seeing what's going on inside a running Spring Boot application. With all its goodness of auto-configuration, there comes a risk of not knowing what is inside your application and that risk is addressed by Spring Actuator.
It provides a lot of insights and metrics about a running application in production. For example, by using Actuator you can find out exactly which beans are configured in the Application context, what are auto-configuration decisions made, what environment variables, system properties, command line arguments are available to an application and many more.
You can even get a trace of HTTP requests handled by the application, along with various useful application metrics e.g. CPU and Memory usage, garbage collection details, web requests, and data source usage.
Spring Boot Actuator also provides several endpoints to retrieve this data e.g. you can get all this using RESTful APIs or you can use its remote shell feature to securely go inside the application and get all this information by issuing commands.
It also exposes all this functionality using JMX MBeans which means you can control them at runtime using a JMX client like JConsole.
At the same time, you also need to secure access to Actuator endpoints because it not only expose confidential information but also it's dangerous. For example, anyone can stop your application by using /shutdown endpoints.
Though, you don't need to worry. Like any other Spring application, you can use Spring Security to protect Actuator endpoints.
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