The building blocks described previously make Spring a logical choice in many scenarios, from applets to full-fledged enterprise applications that use Spring's transaction management functionality and web framework integration.

Typical full-fledged Spring web application

Spring's declarative transaction management features make the web application fully transactional, just as it would be if you use EJB container-managed transactions. All your custom business logic can be implemented with simple POJOs and managed by Spring's IoC container. Additional services include support for sending email and validation that is independent of the web layer, which lets you choose where to execute validation rules. Spring's ORM support is integrated with JPA, Hibernate, JDO and iBatis; for example, when using Hibernate, you can continue to use your existing mapping files and standard Hibernate SessionFactory configuration. Form controllers seamlessly integrate the web-layer with the domain model, removing the need for ActionForms or other classes that transform HTTP parameters to values for your domain model.

Spring middle-tier using a third-party web framework

Sometimes circumstances do not allow you to completely switch to a different framework. The Spring Framework does not force you to use everything within it; it is not an all-or-nothing solution. Existing front-ends built with WebWork, Struts, Tapestry, or other UI frameworks can be integrated with a Spring-based middle-tier, which allows you to use Spring transaction features. You simply need to wire up your business logic using an ApplicationContext and use a WebApplicationContext to integrate your web layer.

Remoting usage scenario

When you need to access existing code through web services, you can use Spring's Hessian-, Burlap-, Rmi- or JaxRpcProxyFactory classes. Enabling remote access to existing applications is not difficult.

EJBs - Wrapping existing POJOs

The Spring Framework also provides an access- and abstraction- layer for Enterprise JavaBeans, enabling you to reuse your existing POJOs and wrap them in stateless session beans, for use in scalable, fail-safe web applications that might need declarative security.