We’re pleased to announce that Spring Cloud Azure 5.0 is now generally available.

This major release includes the following features, improvements, and documentation updates:

• Compatible with Spring Boot 3 and Spring Cloud 2022.0.0
• Support for passwordless connections
• Updated Azure for Spring developers documentation to help Spring developers code, deploy and scale Spring applications on Azure
• Redesigned Spring Cloud Azure documentation with improved scenarios

To try Spring Cloud Azure 5.0, add the following dependency BOM to your project:

<dependencyManagement>
  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.azure.spring</groupId>
      <artifactId>spring-cloud-azure-dependencies</artifactId>
      <version>5.0.0</version>
      <type>pom</type>
      <scope>import</scope>
    </dependency>
  </dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>

Spring Boot 3 and Spring Cloud 2022.0.0 integration

Spring Boot 3 and Spring Cloud 2022.0.0 bring many exciting features, requiring some significant changes to Spring Cloud Azure to fully leverage them.

Noteworthy changes in this version

Dependency upgrades:

1. Deprecated API upgrades, Azure/azure-sdk-for-java#31543:

• com.azure.spring.cloud.autoconfigure.aad.implementation.oauth2.AadOAuth2AuthenticatedPrincipal class removed
• com.azure.spring.cloud.autoconfigure.aad.implementation.webapi.AadOboOAuth2AuthorizedClientProvider class removed
• com.azure.spring.cloud.autoconfigure.aad.properties.AadAuthorizationGrantType class removed
• com.azure.spring.cloud.autoconfigure.aad.AadJwtBearerTokenAuthenticationConverter class removed
• AuthorizationGrantType.PASSWORD no longer supported
• com.nimbusds.jwt.proc.DefaultJWTClaimsVerifier#DefaultJWTClaimsVerifier(com.nimbusds.jwt.JWTClaimsSet, java.util.Set<java.lang.String>) method replaces com.nimbusds.jwt.proc.DefaultJWTClaimsVerifier#DefaultJWTClaimsVerifier()
• AbstractHttpConfigurer replaces org.springframework.security.config.annotation.web.configuration.WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter
• spring-cloud-azure-trace-sleuth artifact removed

2. Spring Security 6 dependencies upgrades, Azure/azure-sdk-for-java#31808:

• org.springframework.security.config.annotation.method.configuration.EnableMethodSecurity annotation replaces org.springframework.security.config.annotation.method.configuration.EnableGlobalMethodSecurity
• org.springframework.security.oauth2.server.resource.authentication.BearerTokenAuthenticationToken class replaces org.springframework.security.oauth2.server.resource.BearerTokenAuthenticationToken

3. Class package path updates and API polishing/refinement, including reducing the number of public APIs: Azure/azure-sdk-for-java#32552, Azure/azure-sdk-for-java#32582, Azure/azure-sdk-for-java#32597, Azure/azure-sdk-for-java#32616, Azure/azure-sdk-for-java#32712, Azure/azure-sdk-for-java#32716.

The following features are planned for future releases:

• GraalVM native image
• Spring Data Cosmos DB
• App Configuration Config and Feature Management

The Spring Cloud Azure Native Reachability client library for Java is currently available for beta testing. Give it a try!

Stay tuned for updates!

Passwordless connections

Using username/password credentials to access one application from another significantly increases overall risk profile. An unauthorized user can gain access to the application using a connection string accidentally checked into source control, sent through an insecure email, pasted into the wrong chat, or otherwise illegitimately obtained. Updating your application to use passwordless connections provides dramatically improved security.

Passwordless connections for Java applications to Azure databases and eventing services are generally available with Spring Cloud Azure 5.0. These changes enable you to access services securely without passing usernames and passwords over the wire.

These Azure services currently support passwordless connections:

Our passwordless journey doesn’t end here. Support for more Azure services is planned and under development.

Spring Initializr

The Azure Support module in Spring Initializr now supports Spring Boot 3, so you can begin your Spring Cloud Azure 5.0 journey directly from the Spring Initializr.

Documentation

Good documentation is a key part of Spring Cloud Azure. We’ve created a new online resource, Azure for Spring developers, to help Spring developers code, deploy, and scale their Spring applications on Azure. Whether you’re familiar with Spring and unfamiliar with Azure services or the other way around – or new to both – this site will help you learn. Content will be expanded and updated continuously.

In addition, we’ve redesigned the Spring Cloud Azure documentation to help developers more easily find what they need, combined with useful scenarios.

Other bug fixes and feature improvements

• Support auto startup for the autoconfigured Service Bus Processor client by enabling new property spring.cloud.azure.servicebus.processor.auto-startup (Azure/azure-sdk-for-java#29997)
• Provide property spring.cloud.azure.eventhubs.kafka.enabled to enable/disable Spring Cloud Azure OAuth2 support for Event Hubs for Kafka (Azure/azure-sdk-for-java#30574)
• Support connecting to Azure AD via proxy (NOTE: custom RestTemplateCustomizer bean must be provided) (Azure/azure-sdk-for-java#26493)
• Support spring-cloud-azure-stream-binder-eventhubs connection to Azure China eventhub (Azure/azure-sdk-for-java#30936)
• Resolved issues in Spring Cloud Stream Azure Kafka with Managed Identity credential refresh (Azure/azure-sdk-for-java#30719)
• Removed logged warnings for Kafka passwordless autoconfiguration (Azure/azure-sdk-for-java#31182)
• Enabled the token authentication converter and Azure AD Resource Server configurer adapter to accept custom JWT granted authorities converter (Azure/azure-sdk-for-java#28665)
• Deleted properties (Azure/azure-sdk-for-java#32465):
  • spring.jms.servicebus.username
  • spring.jms.serviebus.password
  • spring.jms.serviebus.remote-uri
• JacksonHttpSessionOAuth2AuthorizedClientRepository.getAuthorizedClients now returns an unmodifiable Map (Azure/azure-sdk-for-java#31190)
• RestTemplate used to get access token now contains only the two required converters (Azure/azure-sdk-for-java#31482)
• RestOperations now properly configured when jwkResolver is null (Azure/azure-sdk-for-java#31218)
• Fixed duplicated “scope” parameter (Azure/azure-sdk-for-java#31191)
• Updated NimbusJwtDecoder to use RestTemplateBuilder instead of RestTemplate() (Azure/azure-sdk-for-java#31233)
• Resolved NoClassDefFoundError for JSONArray (Azure/azure-sdk-for-java#31716)
• Resolve issues appending spring.main.sources configuration from Spring Cloud Stream Kafka binder (Azure/azure-sdk-for-java#31715)

Feedback

Feedback and contributions are always welcome. You can reach us on Stack Overflow or GitHub.

Resources

To learn more about Spring Cloud Azure, visit the following links:

• Reference documentation
• Conceptual documentation
• Code samples
• Spring versions mapping