Managing Configuration for Microservices with Spring Cloud Config

Spring Cloud Config provides the centralized external configuration management system and it is designed to work well with modern microservices architectures. It is the part of larger Spring Config suite of the tools that aim to help the developers built the cloud-native applications.

Spring Cloud Config Server is the central place where all the configuration parameters of the applications are stored and maintained. It typically backend by the source control system like Git. It can serve the configuration across the multiple environments and applications.

Client microservices connect to the Config Server to fetch their configurations. This setup ensures all the configurations are centralized, version-controlled and maintained in the secure and efficient manner.

Key Terminologies:

• Config Server: A server in the Spring Cloud Config and its setup that can centralizes and manages all the configuration properties for the client applications.
• Config Client: The application that can fetches its the configuration from the Config Server using the Spring Cloud Config.
• @EnableConfigServer: This annotation can be used in Spring applications to designate them as the Config Server.
• Environment Repository: The storage system can be used by the Config Server to the hold and serve configuration properties and it is commonly backed by the Git repository.
• spring.config.import: The property in Spring Boot that can specifies the sources from which the application should import the additional configuration data of the Spring application.

Implementation of Managing Configuration for Microservices with Spring Cloud Config

Below are the implementations to manage configuration for Microservices with Spring Cloud Config.

Setup the Config Server

Step 1: Create the spring project using spring initializer and add the below required dependencies.

Dependencies:

• Spring Web
• Spring Dev Tools
• Lombok
• Spring Cloud Config

After creating the Spring project, the file structure will be like below image.

👁 Config Server Folder Structure

Step 2: Open the application.properties file and add the configuring the server port and git repository uri configuration of the application.

spring.application.name=config-server

server.port=8888
spring.cloud.config.server.git.uri=https://github.com/iammahesh123/spring-cloud-config-server

Git repository application.yml code:

user:
 role: Admin

welcome:
 message: Welcome to the Spring Cloud Config managed application!

Step 2: Open the main class, add the @EnableConfigServer to activate the Spring cloud config functionality of the application.

Go to src > main >java > org.example.configserver > ConfigServerApplication and put the below code.

Step 3: Run the application

Once the Spring project is completed and successfully runs as a Spring application, it will start at port 8888.

👁 Application Runs

Setup the Client-application

Step 1: Create the spring project using spring initializer and add the below dependencies.

Dependencies:

• Spring Web
• Spring Dev Tools
• Lombok
• Spring Cloud Config Client

After creating the Spring project, the file structure will be like below:

👁 Client Application Folder Structure

Step 2: Open the application.properties file and add the configuring the server port and import git uri configuration

spring.application.name=client-application

spring.cloud.config.import=optional:configserver:http://localhost:8888

Step 3: Create the ConfigConsumer class.

Go to src > main >java > org.example.clientapplication > ConfigConsumer and put the below code.

Step 4: Create the HomeController class.

Go to src > main >java > org.example.clientapplication > HomeController and put the below code.

Step 5: Open the main class (No changes are required) and put the below code.

Step 6: Run the application

After the project completed, we will run this as a Spring Boot Application and it will start at port 8080.

👁 clientapplicationlog-compressed

Managing Configuration Testing API:

GET http://localhost:8080/config

Output:

👁 Config Post Testing

This example demonstrates the implementation of the configuration for the microservices with Spring Cloud Config of the Spring Boot application.