DEV Community

Cover image for 🚀 My Spring Boot Project Finally Felt Real After Adding Web MVC + JPA
Shashwath S H
Shashwath S H

Posted on

🚀 My Spring Boot Project Finally Felt Real After Adding Web MVC + JPA

#java #springboot #webdev #backend

When I started learning Spring Boot, I built small demos.

A controller here.
A GET API there.
Everything looked fine…

But it didn’t feel like a real backend project.

A real project needs:
✅ REST APIs
✅ Database integration
✅ Clean layered structure
✅ Proper dependencies and configuration

So today I’m documenting how I set up a Spring Boot project with Web MVC + Spring Data JPA the right way.

✅ What We Are Setting Up

This project will include:

  • Spring Boot Web MVC → for building REST APIs
  • Spring Data JPA → for database operations

  • A clean layered structure:

    • controller
    • service
    • repository
    • dto
    • entity

str

This is the most common structure used in real-world Spring Boot apps.

🧱 Step 1: Create a Spring Boot Project

You can create the project using Spring Initializr.

Choose:

  • Project: Maven
  • Language: Java
  • Packaging: Jar
  • Java Version: (your installed version)

✅ Add Dependencies

Add these:

✅ Spring Web
✅ Spring Data JPA
✅ H2 Database / MySQL Driver (optional but recommended)

📦 Step 2: Understand Your Dependencies

Once dependencies are added, Spring Boot handles most setup automatically.

Spring Web gives you:

  • Controllers
  • REST APIs
  • JSON support (via Jackson)
  • Embedded server (Tomcat)

Spring Data JPA gives you:

  • Repositories
  • CRUD operations
  • Query methods
  • ORM support (Hibernate under the hood)

This combination = production-ready backend base.

🗂️ Step 3: Follow a Clean Project Structure

Here’s the structure I use:

com.yourapp.project
 ├── controller
 ├── service
 ├── repository
 ├── dto
 ├── entity
 └── Application.java
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Why this matters

Without structure:

  • Controllers become huge
  • Logic becomes messy
  • Debugging becomes painful

With structure:
✅ separation of concerns
✅ maintainability
✅ scalability

🌐 Step 4: Web MVC Setup (Controller Layer)

To expose APIs, we use @RestController.

This layer should:

  • Handle request mappings
  • Accept input
  • Return response
  • Call service layer

Rule:
👉 Controller should NOT talk to database directly.

🗄️ Step 5: JPA Setup (Entity + Repository)

To connect your backend to the database, you need:

✅ Entity

  • Represents table in DB

✅ Repository

  • Handles database operations

Spring Data JPA makes database work simple because you can use:

  • JpaRepository

  • Dynamic query methods like:

    • findByName()
    • findByEmail()

No need to write boilerplate DAO code.

⚙️ Step 6: Configure Database in application.properties

Your project needs DB configuration.

In general, you set:

  • datasource URL
  • username/password (if needed)
  • JPA behavior like ddl-auto

This is where you control:

  • table creation/update
  • SQL logging
  • dialect settings

🧠 Step 7: Add Service Layer (Business Logic)

This is the layer that makes your backend “real”.

The Service Layer:

  • encapsulates business logic
  • connects controller and repository
  • keeps architecture clean

Rule:
👉 Controller → Service → Repository → DB

✅ Final Thoughts

Setting up Spring Boot with Web MVC + Spring Data JPA is the moment where projects start feeling like actual backend systems — not demos.

Once this setup is done, you’re ready to build:
✅ CRUD APIs
✅ validations
✅ exception handling
✅ pagination
✅ relationships

This post is part of my learning-in-public journey while exploring Spring Boot and real-world backend development.

What was the most confusing part when you set up your first Spring Boot + JPA project?

Top comments (0)