Almost every app today needs to store data it works with, and often apps use databases to manage the data they persist. For many years, relational databases have provided applications with a simple and elegant way to store data you can successfully apply in many scenarios. Spring apps, like other apps, often need to use databases to persist data, and for this reason, you need to learn how to implement such capabilities for your Spring apps.
In this chapter, we discuss what a data source is and the most straightforward way to make your Spring app work with a database. That straightforward way is the JdbcTemplate tool that Spring offers.
Figure 12.1 You already understand the essential parts you implement with Spring in a system. In chapters 1 through 6, you learned the fundamentals and what makes Spring able to provide the capabilities you use in your apps. In chapters 7 through 11, you learned to implement web apps and REST endpoints to establish communication between the system’s components. You now start your journey in learning the valuable skills of making your Spring app work with persisted data.
