As we discussed in the last chapter, we are moving toward architectures with smaller, independently deployable microservices. This would mean that there will be a huge number of smaller microservices developed.

An important consequence is that we would need to be able to quickly get off the ground and get running with new components.

Spring Boot aims to solve the problem of getting off fast with a new component. In this chapter, we will start with understanding the capabilities Spring Boot brings to the table. We will answer the following questions:

• Why Spring Boot?
• What are the features that Spring Boot provides?
• What is auto-configuration?
• What is Spring Boot not?
• What happens in the background when you use Spring Boot?
• How do you use Spring Initializr to create new Spring Boot projects?
• How do you create basic RESTful services with Spring Boot?