Chapter 5. Distributed Configuration with Spring Cloud Config

It is the right time to introduce a new element in our architecture, a distributed configuration server. Similar to service discovery, this is one of the key concepts around microservices. In the previous chapter, we discussed in detail how to prepare discovery, both on the server and client sides. But so far, we have always provided a configuration for the application using properties placed inside a fat JAR file. That approach has one big disadvantage, it requires a recompilation and a redeployment of the microservice's instance. Another approach supported by Spring Boot assumes the use of an explicit configuration stored in a filesystem outside of the fat JAR. It can be easily configured for an application during startup with the spring.config.location property. That approach does not require a redeployment, but it is also not free from drawbacks. With a lot of microservices, a configuration management based on explicit files...