--- title: Deploy your Spring Boot application to production description: In this article we walk through the steps required to deploy a Spring Boot application to production using Juju and Kubernetes. url: https://canonical.com/blog/deploy-spring-application-to-production?format=md --- 1. [Blog](https://canonical.com/blog) 2. Article --- [Javier de la Puente](https://canonical.com/blog/author/javierdelapuente "More about Javier de la Puente") on 13 January 2026 # Deploy your Spring Boot application to production [charm](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/charm) [Charms](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/charms) [cloud](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/cloud) [Juju](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/juju) [juju charms](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/juju-charms) [kubernetes](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/kubernetes) Share on:* [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https://www.canonical.com/blog/deploy-spring-application-to-production "Share on Facebook") * [Twitter](https://twitter.com/share?text=Deploy%20your%20Spring%20Boot%20application%20to%20production&url=https://www.canonical.com/blog/deploy-spring-application-to-production&hashtags=ubuntu "Share on Twitter") * [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https://www.canonical.com/blog/deploy-spring-application-to-production&title=Deploy%20your%20Spring%20Boot%20application%20to%20production "Share on LinkedIn") --- --- ## Newsletter signup Get the latest Canonical news and updates in your inbox. Work email: \*I agree to receive information about Canonical's products and services. By submitting this form, I confirm that I have read and agree to [Canonical's Privacy Policy](https://canonical.com/legal/data-privacy). Sign up In a previous article, we covered how easy it is to create [Spring Boot containers](https://canonical.com/blog/spring-boot-containers-made-easy) with Rockcraft. So the next logical step is to deploy and operate your application in a production environment. The Juju ecosystem is the key to making this process straightforward. In this article we walk through the steps required to deploy a Spring Boot application to production using Juju and Kubernetes. The goal is to showcase the integration of the application with essential services like PostgreSQL for database management and Traefik for ingress control. Ordinarily, deploying and operating Spring Boot containers is easier said than done. Any non-trivial application will require integrations with other software components like databases, message brokers, and authentication services. Some of these components are complex to operate. What’s more, your application will need to be exposed to the outside world. And for Day 2 operations, you’ll also need to perform routine maintenance and properly monitor your application. Fortunately, Juju provides a strong ecosystem composed of a multitude of high quality software operators that enables deployment, integration and lifecycle management at any scale, on any infrastructure. With the release of the Spring Boot framework extensions for [Rockcraft](https://documentation.ubuntu.com/rockcraft/stable/) and [Charmcraft](https://documentation.ubuntu.com/charmcraft/stable/), if your application follows the 12-factor methodology best practices, you can benefit from the Juju ecosystem out of the box. If you are developing a Spring Boot application we recommend you to try out the [devpack support for Spring](https://canonical.com/blog/devpack-spring-support-ubuntu) and then follow [this tutorial to write your Spring Boot charm](https://documentation.ubuntu.com/charmcraft/latest/tutorial/kubernetes-charm-spring-boot/). But without further ado, let’s see how it all works by charming [spring-petclinic](https://spring-petclinic.github.io/). # Set up a developer machine with Canonical Kubernetes and Juju We will start with a virtual machine created from scratch using [Multipass](https://canonical.com/multipass) and prepare our development machine with the help of the [Concierge](https://github.com/canonical/concierge) tool. Launch the new virtual machine and shell into it: ``` multipass launch --cpus 4 --disk 30G --memory 4G --name blogpost 24.04 ``` ``` multipass shell blogpost ``` We will provision the testing machine with Concierge, which will install and configure Rockcraft, Charmcraft, Canonical Kubernetes and Juju. Besides that, we will update the load balancer to serve under the machine’s main IP and install an OCI image registry: ``` sudo snap install --classic concierge ``` ``` sudo concierge prepare -p k8s --charmcraft-channel latest/edge ``` ``` PREFSRC=$(ip -4 -j route get 2.2.2.2 | jq -r '.[] | .prefsrc') ``` ``` sudo k8s set load-balancer.cidrs=$PREFSRC/32 ``` ``` curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/canonical/spring-petclinic/refs/heads/resources/registry.yaml | kubectl apply -f - ``` # Get spring-petclinic application [spring-petclinic](https://spring-petclinic.github.io/) is the app we’ll be charming. It’s a sample application created by the Spring team to demonstrate a real-world web app using the Spring Framework. Clone the spring-petclinic repository. ``` git clone https://github.com/canonical/spring-petclinic.git ``` ``` cd spring-petclinic ``` Following the [spring-petclinic repository instructions](https://github.com/canonical/spring-petclinic), you can build a jar and run it with the command line. It is quite easy, but clearly not production ready, even the database in-memory. # Create the rock Let’s prepare a rock – a compliant OCI image – for the application. We could use either Maven or Gradle to build the application, but for this example we will use Maven. From the spring-petclinic directory, remove the Gradle artifacts and initialize the rockcraft project: ``` rm -rf build.gradle gradlew gradle ``` ``` rockcraft init --profile spring-boot-framework ``` Pack the rock and upload it to the OCI registry : ``` ROCKCRAFT_ENABLE_EXPERIMENTAL_EXTENSIONS=True rockcraft pack ``` ``` rockcraft.skopeo copy --insecure-policy --dest-tls-verify=false oci-archive:spring-petclinic_0.1_amd64.rock docker://localhost:32000/spring-petclinic:0.1 ``` At this point we have a fully compliant OCI image. But to fully integrate with the Juju ecosystem we need a charm, a software operator. # Create the charm Let’s build it: ``` mkdir charm ``` ``` cd charm ``` ``` charmcraft init --profile spring-boot-framework --name spring-petclinic ``` As we want to use PostgreSQL instead of an in-memory database, add the following lines to the file `charmcraft.yaml`: ``` requires: postgresql: interface: postgresql_client optional: false limit: 1 ``` And we are ready to create a charm. Pack it: ``` CHARMCRAFT_ENABLE_EXPERIMENTAL_EXTENSIONS=True charmcraft pack ``` # Let’s test it At this point we have a charm for spring-petclinic that will integrate seamlessly with PostgreSQL. Let’s test it with a new Juju model in a Kubernetes cloud: ``` juju add-model spring-petclinic ``` ``` juju deploy ./spring-petclinic_amd64.charm spring-petclinic --resource app-image=localhost:32000/spring-petclinic:0.1 --config app-profiles=postgres ``` Deploy PostgreSQL and Traefik and integrate with spring-petclinic: ``` juju deploy postgresql-k8s --trust ``` ``` juju integrate spring-petclinic postgresql-k8s ``` ``` juju deploy traefik-k8s --trust ``` ``` juju integrate spring-petclinic traefik-k8s ``` After a while, your production ready application will be ready for use! You can check it with the command `juju status`: You can get the URL of the application with: ``` juju run traefik-k8s/0 show-proxied-endpoints ``` And just like that, you can use it! The application is running in a Kubernetes cluster, with Trafik acting as an ingress. Your spring-petclinic application is now using PostgreSQL to store its data. The Charmed PostgreSQL K8s has provided credentials for the database to the spring-petclinic application, and is ready to be operated in a production-grade environment. Not bad for a start. # Get in touch Do you have a project or setup where you want to employ this solution? If you have any questions about the 12-factor tooling for Rockcraft and Charmcraft, reach out in our [Matrix Channel](https://matrix.to/#/#12-factor-charms:ubuntu.com). # What’s next? * [Follow the Spring Boot tutorial](https://documentation.ubuntu.com/charmcraft/latest/tutorial/kubernetes-charm-spring-boot/) * [Publish your charm in CharmHub](https://documentation.ubuntu.com/charmcraft/stable/howto/manage-charms/#publish-a-charm-on-charmhub) #### Related posts --- [Isobel Kate Maxwell](https://canonical.com/blog/author/iso-maxwell) 24 April 2025 ### [The hitchhiker’s guide to infrastructure modernization](https://canonical.com/blog/hitchhikers-guide-to-infrastructure-modernization) Cloud and server Ubuntu tech blog One of my favourite authors, Douglas Adams, once said that “we are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works.” Whilst Adams is right about a lot of things, he got this one wrong – at least when it comes to infrastructure. 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