Dockerizing a Spring Boot Application

We are in the world of developing applications using multiple languages, frameworks, architectures for each life cycle stage which creates enormous complexity. There is an urge to do container-based deployment. Spring Boot and Docker together is a great combo to develop a RESTful web service application. In this article, I will try to explain:

  • Docker and its benefits.
  • Creating a Spring Boot Application.
  • Hosting the Spring Boot Application in Docker.

Docker

Docker is an open-source technology used mostly for developing, shipping and running applications. The brilliance of Docker is that, once you package an application and all its dependencies into a Docker container, you ensure it will run in any environment. A Docker container image is a lightweight, standalone, executable package of software that has everything you need to run an application. For example, the creation of a Java application requires Java libraries, and when we deploy it on any system or VM, we need to install Java first. But, in a container, everything is kept together and shipped as one package, such as in a Docker container. Read the documentation for more information about Docker containers.