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Spring Boot 4 In Practice

Jitin Kayyala

Spring Boot 4 changes everything you thought you knew about building Java applications. Virtual threads make blocking code fast again. Native images deliver instant startup. First-class API versioning finally solves the "how do we evolve our APIs?" problem. But here's the catch: upgrading isn't just a dependency bump. Jakarta EE 11, new auto-configuration patterns, GraalVM constraints, and reactive vs. virtual threads— getting it right requires understanding the *why* behind every change. This book is your production-ready guide to Spring Boot 4 and Spring Framework 7. Written for intermediate developers who need more than "hello world" tutorials. Learn how to: • Build cloud-native microservices that scale • Migrate from Boot 3 safely and incrementally • Design APIs with built-in versioning and resilience • Choose between reactive, virtual threads, and native images • Secure distributed systems with JWT and OAuth2 • Implement observability that actually helps you debug production issues 300+ pages. 27 chapters. Real code. Real architecture. Real problems solved.

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About

About

About the Book

This book is designed to be your definitive resource for mastering Spring Boot 4, the latest evolution of the popular framework for building robust, production-ready Java applications. As the software development landscape continues to advance, Spring Boot remains at the forefront, offering unparalleled ease of use, powerful features, and a vibrant ecosystem that empowers developers to create high-performance, scalable, and maintainable systems.



Spring Boot 4, built upon the innovations of Spring Framework 7, brings significant enhancements, including deeper integration with modern Java features, refined support for GraalVM Native Images, and advanced capabilities for cloud-native deployments. This guide will take you on a journey from the foundational concepts of Spring Boot to advanced architectural patterns, security best practices, performance optimization, and long-term maintenance strategies.



Whether you are a seasoned Spring developer looking to upgrade your skills or an experienced Java professional seeking to leverage the power of Spring Boot 4, this book provides practical insights, detailed explanations, and hands-on code examples to help you build cutting-edge applications. We will cover:



  • Modern Spring Fundamentals: A deep dive into the core principles of Spring and Spring Boot, including dependency injection, component scanning, and the auto-configuration magic that simplifies development.
  • Designing Robust HTTP APIs: Crafting efficient and secure RESTful services, handling validation, error management, and working with various data payloads.
  • Data Access and Performance: Mastering Spring Data JPA, transaction management, and exploring alternative data access technologies, alongside strategies for caching, concurrency, and database optimization.
  • Security for Real-World Apps: Implementing modern security practices with Spring Security, including JWT, OAuth2, and securing microservices in distributed environments.
  • Testing, Quality, and Observability: Ensuring application quality through comprehensive testing, static analysis, and robust observability solutions covering logging, metrics, and distributed tracing.
  • Architecture with Spring: Evolving from monolithic applications to microservices, exploring serverless functions, and understanding advanced architectural styles like Domain-Driven Design, Event Sourcing, CQRS, and Hexagonal Architecture.
  • Deployment and Production Concerns: Deploying applications using Docker and Kubernetes, leveraging GraalVM Native Images for ultra-fast startup, and managing production environments with cloud-native monitoring, logging, and security best practices.
  • Migration and Maintenance: Strategies for upgrading to Spring Boot 4, managing technical debt, and engaging with the thriving Spring community for long-term success.



Each chapter is meticulously crafted to provide clear explanations, practical code examples, and references to official documentation and community resources. My goal is to equip you with the knowledge and skills necessary to confidently build, deploy, and maintain high-quality Spring Boot 4 applications that meet the demands of today's complex software landscape.

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Author

About the Author

Jitin Kayyala

Jitin Kayyala is a Sun Certified Java Developer with over 15 years of experience designing and developing enterprise-scale web applications. He specializes in cloud-native architecture, microservices, and DevOps practices. His technical leadership spans Java, Spring Boot, AWS, Kubernetes, and distributed systems architecture.

Contents

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 – Spring in 2026: What Changed and Why It Matters

  1. What’s new in Spring Framework 7 and Spring Boot 4
  2. The Jakarta EE baseline and its implications
  3. Reactive, virtual threads, native images: choosing the right tool
  4. Where Spring fits among Micronaut, Quarkus, Helidon

Chapter 2 – Spring Boot 4 Under the Hood (Recap for Intermediates)

  1. Auto-configuration internals (conditions, ordering)
  2. Configuration properties (@ConfigurationProperties, records, validation)
  3. Profiles, environment abstraction, and config precedence
  4. Actuator as a first-class tool, not an afterthought

Chapter 3 – Dependency Injection and Bean Lifecycles (Beyond the Basics)

  1. Refresh on IoC/DI, but focusing on issues
  2. Bean scopes in real apps (singleton, request, session, prototype)
  3. Lifecycle callbacks, SmartLifecycle, and application startup sequencing
  4. Detecting misconfigurations early (fail-fast, custom health checks)

Chapter 4 – Advanced REST API Design with Spring MVC

  1. API design principles for teams (resource modeling, consistency)
  2. Versioning strategies in practice (URI, headers, content negotiation)
  3. Idempotency, safe retries, and handling partial failures
  4. Structuring controllers and DTOs in a large codebase

Chapter 5 – Validation, Error Handling, and Problem Details

  1. Bean Validation in depth (groups, composed constraints)
  2. Global exception handling patterns (@ControllerAdvice, RFC 7807 / Problem Details)
  3. Returning consistent error responses across the whole platform
  4. Multi-module/shared error-handling libraries for teams

Chapter 6 – File Handling, Streaming, and Large Payloads

  1. Efficient file uploads/downloads (streaming, range requests)
  2. Serving large JSON/NDJSON/CSV responses without blowing memory
  3. Practical backpressure strategies in traditional MVC apps
  4. Integrating with CDNs, proxies, and gateways

Chapter 7 – Spring Data JPA in Real Systems

  1. Entity design for performance and clarity
  2. Dealing with N+1 queries and lazy loading
  3. Projections (interfaces, DTOs) and query hints
  4. When to give up on JPA for specific queries

Chapter 8 – Transaction Management in Depth

  1. @Transactional semantics (propagation, isolation) with real examples
  2. Long-running workflows and sagas vs ACID transactions
  3. Handling concurrency conflicts (optimistic vs pessimistic locking)
  4. Designing transactional boundaries in layered/hexagonal architectures

Chapter 9 – Alternatives and Complements: JDBC, jOOQ, and NoSQL

  1. Effective use of JdbcTemplate and batch operations
  2. Integrating jOOQ for complex queries without losing Spring benefits
  3. Spring Data for NoSQL (MongoDB, Redis) – patterns that differ from JPA
  4. Polyglot persistence: when one DB is not enough

Chapter 10 – Modern Spring Security Configuration

  1. The new SecurityFilterChain DSL (no more WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter)
  2. Stateless vs stateful security in practice
  3. Method security with @PreAuthorize and custom permission evaluators
  4. Common pitfalls: CSRF, CORS, session fixation

Chapter 11 – JWT, OAuth2, and Identity in Distributed Systems

  1. Implementing JWT-based auth for APIs (resource servers)
  2. Integrating with identity providers (Keycloak, Okta, Auth0, corporate IdPs)
  3. Single sign-on (SSO) for internal applications
  4. Patterns for propagating identity across microservices

Chapter 12 – Securing Microservices: Patterns and Best Practices

  1. Challenges in microservice security
  2. API Gateway security (authentication, rate limiting, WAF)
  3. Service-to-service authentication and authorization
  4. Data security (encryption, masking, access control)
  5. Centralized secret management (Vault, Kubernetes Secrets)
  6. Security auditing and logging

Chapter 13 – Unit, Integration, and End-to-End Testing with Spring Boot Test

  1. The Spring Boot Test ecosystem: @SpringBootTest, @WebMvcTest, @DataJpaTest, etc.
  2. Mocking strategies: @MockBean, @SpyBean, and Mockito
  3. Testcontainers for reliable integration testing
  4. End-to-end testing with Selenium/Playwright and Spring Boot
  5. Best practices for a robust testing strategy

Chapter 14 – Code Quality, Static Analysis, and Refactoring

  1. Establishing coding standards and code review processes
  2. Static analysis tools: Checkstyle, SpotBugs, PMD, SonarQube
  3. Refactoring techniques for improving code design
  4. Measuring and tracking technical debt

Chapter 15 – Observability: Logging, Metrics, Tracing, and Alerting

  1. Structured logging with Logback/Log4j2 and MDC
  2. Metrics with Micrometer and Prometheus/Grafana
  3. Distributed tracing with OpenTelemetry and Zipkin/Jaeger
  4. Alerting strategies and incident response

Chapter 16 – From Monolith to Microservices: An Evolutionary Path

  1. When to choose a monolith vs. microservices
  2. Evolutionary architecture: the Strangler Fig Pattern
  3. Identifying service boundaries (domain-driven design)
  4. Event-driven architecture and its role in decoupling

Chapter 17 – Building Microservices with Spring Boot: Core Patterns

  1. Service discovery (Eureka, Consul, Kubernetes Service Discovery)
  2. Distributed configuration (Spring Cloud Config, Consul KV)
  3. Circuit breakers and resilience patterns (Resilience4j)
  4. API Gateway (Spring Cloud Gateway)
  5. Centralized logging and tracing (ELK, OpenTelemetry)
  6. Event-driven communication with Spring Cloud Stream

Chapter 18 – Serverless and Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) with Spring Cloud Function

  1. Benefits of serverless architecture for Spring Boot applications
  2. Spring Cloud Function: a unified programming model
  3. Deploying Spring Boot functions to AWS Lambda
  4. Serverless patterns for data processing and event-driven workflows
  5. Trade-offs and when to avoid serverless

Chapter 19 – Reactive Programming with Spring WebFlux and Reactor

  1. Introduction to reactive programming and its benefits
  2. Spring WebFlux: building reactive web applications
  3. Project Reactor: Flux and Mono
  4. Backpressure management in reactive systems
  5. Integrating reactive data access (Spring Data R2DBC)

Chapter 20 – High-Performance Spring: Caching, Concurrency, and Asynchronous Processing

  1. Caching strategies with Spring Cache Abstraction
  2. Concurrency control and thread management
  3. Asynchronous processing with @Async and CompletableFuture
  4. Database connection pooling and optimization

Chapter 21 – Performance Testing, Load Testing, and Profiling

  1. Defining performance goals and metrics
  2. Performance testing with JMeter and Gatling
  3. Profiling tools: JProfiler, VisualVM, Java Flight Recorder
  4. Continuous performance monitoring in production

Chapter 22 – Deployment Strategies: JAR, Docker, and Kubernetes

  1. Traditional JAR deployment and its limitations
  2. Docker containerization for consistent environments
  3. Kubernetes orchestration for scalable and resilient deployments
  4. Cloud-native deployment considerations (managed services, serverless containers)

Chapter 23 – GraalVM Native Images for Ultra-Fast Startup and Low Memory Footprint

  1. Introduction to GraalVM Native Image and its advantages
  2. Spring Boot 4 and GraalVM: first-class support for native images
  3. Optimizing native images for size and performance
  4. Deploying native images to cloud environments (AWS Lambda, Kubernetes)

Chapter 24 – Production Concerns: Monitoring, Logging, Tracing, and Security in the Cloud

  1. Cloud-native monitoring and alerting with Spring Boot Actuator
  2. Centralized logging and log aggregation in cloud environments
  3. Distributed tracing in cloud-native architectures
  4. Cloud security best practices for Spring Boot applications
  5. Disaster recovery and business continuity in the cloud

Chapter 25 – Migrating from Spring Boot 3 to Spring Boot 4

  1. Understanding the major changes in Spring Boot 4 and Spring Framework 7
  2. Migration steps and considerations
  3. Leveraging new features and improvements
  4. Best practices for a smooth migration

Chapter 26 – Advanced Design Patterns and Architectural Styles

  1. Domain-Driven Design (DDD) for complex business domains
  2. Event Sourcing and CQRS for scalable and maintainable systems
  3. Hexagonal Architecture (Ports and Adapters) for adaptable application cores
  4. Building modular monoliths with Spring Boot

Chapter 27 – Long-Term Maintenance, Upgrades, and Community Engagement

  1. Continuous delivery and automated upgrades
  2. Managing technical debt and refactoring strategies
  3. Long-term support (LTS) versions and upgrade paths
  4. Community involvement and leveraging the Spring ecosystem
  5. Conclusion

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