Introduction of Spring Framework

The Spring Framework provides a comprehensive programming and configuration model for modern Java-based enterprise applications - on any kind of deployment platform. A key element of Spring is infrastructural support at the application level: Spring focuses on the "plumbing" of enterprise applications so that teams can focus on application-level business logic, without unnecessary ties to specific deployment environments.

Spring includes:

• Flexible dependency injection with XML and annotation-based configuration styles

• Advanced support for aspect-oriented programming with proxy-based and AspectJ-based variants
• Support for declarative transactions, declarative caching, declarative validation, and declarative formatting

• Powerful abstractions for working with common Java EE specifications such as JDBC, JPA, JTA and JMS

• First-class support for common open source frameworks such as Hibernate and Quartz

• A flexible web framework for building RESTful MVC applications and service endpoints

• Rich testing facilities for unit tests as well as for integration tests

Spring is modular in design, allowing for incremental adoption of individual parts such as the core container or the JDBC support. While all Spring services are a perfect fit for the Spring core container, many services can also be used in a programmatic fashion outside of the container.

Supported deployment platforms range from standalone applications to Tomcat and Java EE servers such as WebSphere. Spring is also a first-class citizen on major cloud platforms with Java support, e.g. on Heroku, Google App Engine, Amazon Elastic Beanstalk and VMware's Cloud Foundry.

The Spring Framework serves as the foundation for the wider family of Spring open source projects, including:

• Spring Security

• Spring Integration

• Spring Batch
• Spring Data

• Spring Web Flow

• Spring Web Services
• Spring Mobile

• Spring Social

• Spring Android

Pasted from <http://www.springsource.org/spring-framework>