Top Five Books to Learn Spring Boot and Spring Cloud for Java Developers

If you are a Java developer and want to learn more about Spring Boot and Spring Cloud frameworks, you have come to the right place. In the past, I have shared some of the best Spring Boot and Spring Cloud courses. Today, I am going to talk about some of the best books to learn Spring Boot and Spring Cloud. But, before that, let's try to understand what are microservices and how Spring Boot and Spring Cloud help with the development of microservices in Java. Microservices are nothing but an extension of RESTful web services with the main objective being to break up your code into small, distributed, and independent services for better management. However, it does require a thoughtful design and a significant amount of preparation.

Fortunately, Spring Boot and Spring Cloud simplify your microservice applications by providing common features and allowing you to focus on business logic by abstracting away details required for cloud-based development.

Just like the Spring Framework simplifies Java development, Spring Boot removes the friction and boilerplate code involved with developing a REST-based service.

Similarly, Spring Cloud provides a suite of tools for the discovery, routing, and deployment of microservices to the enterprise and the cloud. This is so that you don't need to focus on cloud-related details and can keep writing the Java application as you do now.

Since Java development is now moving towards a cloud and microservice world, it's probably the best time to learn Spring Boot and Spring Cloud, so that you can be ready for great opportunities in the near future.

Best Spring Boot and Spring Cloud Books for Java Programmers

Unfortunately, there are not many good books available on these frameworks, so we don't have many choices. At the same time, some of the available books are really awesome.

As more and more Java developers are learning Spring Boot and Spring Cloud for developing cloud-based Java applications, you can expect more books to be written and released on these topics. For now, here are some of the best resources for learning Spring Boot and Spring Cloud.

1. Spring Boot in Action

This is the best book to learn Spring Boot from none other than Craig Walls, who has taught most of Java developers' Spring Framework through his classic book Spring in Action.

Craig has a wonderful ability to explain the complex and tedious concept in simple language with beautiful analogies. Along with that, you will find many beautiful examples in this book as well.

The book covers almost all the essential topics in Spring Boot, starting from auto-configuration and starter dependencies with a general idea of how Spring Boot simplifies Java development.

The book further explores advanced concepts — like the Spring Boot Actuator — to find out what's going on inside a Spring Boot application. It also looks at the Spring Boot CLI for even simpler Java Spring development with Groovy.

In short, Spring Boot in Action is one of the best books to learn Spring Boot and a must read for any Java developer who wants to master the Spring Boot framework.

2. Cloud Native Java

This is a gem of the book on cloud-based Java development . I don't think there is any other book that successfully covers the cloud-based Java development and building of a resilient distributed application using Spring, such as this book.

Both authors, Josh Long and Kenny Bastani, are an authority on Spring framework and it shows in this book. The introductions of different aspects of Spring, e.g. MVC, configuration, and cloud, are very good. They have tried their best to keep this complex topic as simple as possible.

In the beginning, cloud terminologies and services may seem overwhelming, but if you stick around and finish the book, you would have to build a strong foundation on building cloud-based Java applications using Spring Boot, Spring Cloud, and Cloud Foundry .

The book is divided into four major sections which covers the basics, developing distributed web services and microservices, data integration and deployment of a cloud-based application into production, and some guidelines on continuous integration and delivery.

In short, this is one of the most comprehensive guides for developing cloud-based Java applications.

3. Spring Microservices in Action

This is another great book on cloud-based Java development, but it focuses on microservices. Actually, this is the first book I read on this topic before starting with Cloud-Native Java.

The author, John Carnell, is a senior cloud engineer with twenty years of experience in Java and it really shows in this book. He has done an excellent job of explaining the key microservices concepts and patterns like configuration, routing, scaling, and deploying your service with real-life examples.

This book will also teach you how to build microservices-based applications using Java and the Spring platform. You will not only learn these concepts, but you will also get hands-on experience with microservices design while you build and deploy your first Spring Cloud application.

Overall, this is an ideal book for Java developers with Spring experience who want to develop microservices applications in Java.

4. Learning Spring Boot 2.0

This is another awesome book for learning Spring Boot 2.0. This is the latest version of the popular Spring Boot framework. The author, Greg Turnquist, is an authority on Spring and works at Pivotal, the company behind the Spring Framework.

He is a member of the Spring Data team and the lead for Spring Session MongoDB. He is also involved with the development of Spring Boot, Spring HATEOAS, and Spring Data REST, while also serving as editor-at-large for Spring's Getting Started Guide.

All these experiences are apparent in this book. I particularly liked how he explained things in up-to-minor-level-details. For example, in the first Spring Boot examples, he explains what a @SpringBootAppliation is doing in terms of scanning for Spring component recursively, enabling auto-configuration and stating that the class itself can be a source of Spring beans.

He then goes out and explains log and proves his points, which really consolidates the information. The book not only covers Spring Boot, but it also is very rich in testing Spring applications. The author is a bit of a test junky, having written the Python Testing Cookbook.

Learning Spring Boot 2.0 explores the landscape of developing microservices with Spring Boot and deploying the Spring Boot application into production. In short, this is a perfect book to learn Spring Boot for Java developers.

5. Mastering Spring Boot 2.0

This is another relatively new book on Spring Boot by Dinesh Rajput. He is a fellow Java blogger and Spring enthusiast. He is also a Pivotal Certified Spring Professional and the author of Spring 5 Design Patterns, another fantastic book on the Spring framework.

The full title of the book is "Mastering Spring Boot 2.0: Build modern, cloud-native, and distributed systems using Spring Boot." As the extended title explains, it also covers Spring Cloud and cloud-based Java development.

In this book, you will start with Spring Boot 2.0, the latest version of the Spring framework and then learn essential features, e.g. auto-configuration, starter dependencies, Actuator, Spring Boot CLI, etc.

Once you are familiar with the basics, you will explore advanced things like customizing auto-configuration to meet your expectation. After that, the book explores the microservice and cloud landscapes by introducing key Spring Boot tools and services.

In short, the book covers everything you need to know for developing Spring-based Java microservices applications, starting from development to testing and deployment.

That's all for now regarding the best books to learn Spring Boot and Spring Cloud. These are the two  leading Java frameworks for developing cloud-based Java applications. These books will not only help you to learn the basics, but they also gives you the hands-on experience you need to create and deploy your own Java application on cloud.

These books should be enough to learn cloud-based Java development, but if you need more assistance, you can also refer to Master MicroService development with Spring Boot for a more instructor-led learning.

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