Make A Secure Mobile App Using Spring and AngularJS
When it comes to eCommerce, entrepreneurs would expect a software app to offer data security and seamless user experience. Software apps development, in particular enterprise applications has been simplified with the frameworks Spring and AngularJS. There are also the REST APIs that while we would not be discussing in this article, play a crucial role as well.
The security of Spring and AngularJS could form a software app that is not only secure, but offers a great user experience too. The Spring security handles the security part while the AngularJS takes care of data performance. Angular web development services could craft apps using both Spring and the Angular platform.
The Spring Security
The Spring security framework is meant for enterprise Java applications that provide both authorization and authentication to Java apps. Though authorization and authentication both have been the key features of any security system, which makes the Spring security different is its comparative flexibility and robustness in integrating different authentication models, as well as usage ease. Contemporary organizations want reliable, secure and flexible software systems.
It is unfortunate however that a lot of security frameworks fail when it comes to integration, or much worse, even in dynamic authorization and authentication scenarios. This is where the Spring comes to the rescue. Surprisingly, aside from supporting different authentication models, it provides support to any custom authentication model as well. You could ask your Angular web developer to integrate Spring with AngularJS for reinforced security.
Spring Security Features
- Qualified flexibility. Consider the security features of the Servlet Specification of J2EE. Even if these systems provide both authorization and authentication within their limit, they fail due to being portable. That is why when switching server environments after the Servlet Specification employment, you would have to deal with so many overheads, in the form of a new environment security reconfigurations. Spring doesn’t require such a thing. You could simply switch the server environment and proceed to work. The Spring Security will adapt to the new environment without manual intervention.
- Potent authentication. Authentication requirements may differ across organizations. You may need requests, for example to arrive over the HTTP protocol to protect credentials from attacks only. The Spring security supports automatic ‘channel security’, along with the integration of JCaptcha to detect human users.
- Targeted for enterprise software that’s JSEE-based. Spring security could be used to accomplish all J2EE-based enterprise software systems requirements. Although there are other security systems available, Spring security is getting to be more popular and opted by many.
- Integrating third-party authentication and custom models. It supports not just numerous established authentication models, but also provides support for custom written authentication models. It provides support to models including HTTP Digest authentication headers, HTTP BASIC authentication, OpenID authentication and a whole lot more.
The Main Goals of Spring Boot
The main goal is to lessen development, integration test time, and unit test, as well as ease developing production-ready web apps. The goals of Spring Boot are the following:
- Avoid defining more Configuration and Annotation
- Thoroughly avoid XML Configuration
- Provide several defaults to jump-start new projects fast
- Avoid writing a lot of import statements
- Provide an opinionated development approach
Why Opt for Spring Boot?
- Provides flexible configuration of XML, Java Beans, and database transactions.
- Everything in it is automatically configured, thus no need for manual configurations.
- It offers an annotation-based spring app.
- Provides a robust batch processing as well as managing REST endpoints.
- Includes an embedded servlet container.
- Eases the management of dependency.
About AngularJS
Front-end developers heavily rely on JavaScript to implement the interactive web-based app aspects. There are however complex aspects in the implementation of error-free and fast code. These could be resolved using a robust framework. AngularJS, being a framework of JavaScript is a product of Google that is intended to simplify the setting up web apps process.
These are the main reasons for the popularity of AngularJS.
- Open-source framework aimed at simplifying and expediting web-based apps
- The code’s modular nature makes testing the required parts easy
- It provides a JavaScript library code based on standard HTML and JSS, which makes for easier developing apps.
- Can add to any HTML page
AngularJS Defining Features
- Flexibility. While it provides functions, methods, and libraries aimed at app development, customization could be based on your unique requirements.
- Extensibility. Embraces and extends CSS, HTML, and JavaScript capabilities, thus it has a steep learning curve. An angular developer must have a thorough knowledge of CSS, HTML, and JavaScript to get going.
- Fast app development. Already, flexibility and extensibility hasten app development already. Since the framework is aimed at client-side apps, interactions with the server that are recurring it not required, speeds development, saves time and provides a good user experience.
The Main Goals of AngularJS
- App testing holds parallel relevance to app writing. The difficulty in testing is impacted dramatically by how the code is structured.
- Decouple DOM manipulation from app logic. This boosts code testability.
- Guide developers through the whole journey of app building, from UI designing to writing business logic and testing.
- Decouple client-side app from the server-side. This enables the development process to progress in parallel and enable reusing both sides.
How the Combination Works
While Spring works on the server front or backend, AngularJS works on the frontend and one or more APIs or web services are put in between. The APIs serve as the interface between the two frameworks, pass requests from a client in a particular format to the server, and deliver a response to the client.
Sample App Code
We build an app with Spring and AngularJS. We’d be using Spring version 1.5.3, Java 7/8, and AngularJS 1.5.6 version, which all are the stable and latest versions. We will write all the components, one at a time. We would have a pom.xml file that showcases all the required dependencies in this project.
Listing No. 1: Sample pom.xml file
We’ll see the Spring boot app class. The app will be bootstrapped by the class and begin from the main method.
Listing No. 2: A sample of a Spring boot app class
Below is a request mapping and rendering sample controller class to an HTML file.
Listing No. 3: A sample controller class
We would now write the HMTL file with the embedded AngularJS components.
Listing No. 4: An HTML file sample
The following are JS files included in the previous HTML file.
Listing No. 5: app.js file sample
Listing No. 6: Controller.js file sample
We would now have the HTML files for students and subjects.
Listing No. 7: HTML files sample
- students.html file
- subject.html file
We’re almost through with the app. You only have to build the app and then run it. We’ll use the following commands one at a time to deploy and run the application on the Tomcat server.
Open the following links on any browser and it would reveal both the students and subjects list.
localhost:8080/index.html#/students
localhost:8080/index.html#/subjects
Conclusion
Business organizations these days need fast delivery of quality software. The Agile software development method deserves to be mentioned here. There is little time for traditional methods obviously, like bootstrapping. Both AngularJS and Spring enable higher productivity in development.
