Spring is a modern framework for application development in Java. Its main purpose is to simplify the development via numerous modules Spring brings in support of integration with various technologies. Spring’s nucleus – “bean container” – is used for connecting various application objects, wherein one can choose from various ways of configuration description, of which the most significant being XML databases. As an addition to all that, Spring does it in a non-invasive way, which means that application objects are not aware of Spring controlling their life cycle, and due to that can exist independently as well.
Picture 1: Basic Modules of Spring Framework
All application layers are superimposed with Spring modules. Integration with the denoted technologies alone means that the use of these technologies is simplified to the greatest (possible) extent for all objects living in a Spring bean container. This usually means that the numerous complicated utilization details of certain technologies will already be performed by Spring itself. In addition, Spring’s numerous supplementary classes bring further simplification of the coding process. For example, when working with databases, Spring’s JDBC module simplifies JDBC API via JdbcTemplate and SimpleJdbcTemplate classes.
Our experience of many projects proved how Spring Framework and IBM WebSphere application server along with supplementary tools like IBM Rational Software Architect is the ideal combination for client and web application development in Java. Moreover, Spring is simply and quickly integrated with different software technologies such as IBM MQ Series or DB2 Universal Database.
