Spring News Roundup: Second Milestone Releases of Boot, Framework, Data, Security, Integration

Spring released second milestone builds of Spring Boot 4.2.0, Spring Framework 7.1.0, Spring Data 2026.1.0, Spring Security 7.2.0, Spring Batch, Spring AMQP, Spring Integration and Spring for Apache Kafka during the week of September 21, 2026, alongside first milestone releases of Spring AI, Spring Cloud 2026.0.0 (codenamed Paddington), Spring Web Services and Spring LDAP. Spring Boot 4.2.0-M2 adds auto-configuration of a named SSL Bundle with a Spring LDAP instance and a new management.observations.conventions property to switch semantic conventions between Micrometer and OpenTelemetry, while Spring Data 2026.1.0-M2 adds initial compatibility with Hibernate ORM 8.0.0.Beta1 for the upcoming Jakarta Persistence 4.0 specification. Spring Cloud 2026.0.0-M1, based on Spring Boot 4.2.0-M2, introduces an interface that notifies applications over HTTP when a configuration change is detected and refactors classes to deny requests from an untrusted proxy.

There was a flurry of activity during the week of September 21st, 2026, highlighting: second milestone releases of: Spring Boot, Spring Batch, Spring Security, Spring AMQP, Spring Integration, Spring Data, Spring Framework, Spring for GraphQL and Spring for Apache Kafka. There were also first milestone releases of Spring AI, Spring Cloud, Spring Web Services and Spring LDAP. Spring Boot The second milestone release https://spring.io/blog/2026/09/25/spring-boot-4-2-0-M2-available-now of Spring Boot https://spring.io/projects/spring-boot 4.2.0 delivers bug fixes, documentation improvements, dependency upgrades and new features such as: the ability to auto-configure a named SSL Bundle with an instance of the Spring LDAP class; and a new configuration property, management.observations.conventions= micrometer|opentelemetry , to switch semantic conventions to/from Micrometer and OpenTelemetry. More details on this release may be found in the release notes https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-boot/releases/tag/v4.2.0-M2 and this wiki page https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-boot/wiki/Spring-Boot-4.2.0-M2-Release-Notes . Spring Framework The second milestone release of Spring Framework https://spring.io/projects/spring-framework 7.1.0 ships with bug fixes, documentation improvements, dependency upgrades and new features such as: improved null safety in the class; and improved validation with the parse method, defined in the class, if the Set-Cookie HTTP response header is empty. Further details on this release may be found in the release notes https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-framework/releases/tag/v7.1.0-M2 . Spring Data The second milestone release https://spring.io/blog/2026/09/23/spring-data-2026-1-0-M2-released of Spring Data https://spring.io/projects/spring-data 2026.1.0 provides notable changes such as: initial compatibility with Hibernate ORM https://hibernate.org/orm/ 8.0.0.Beta1 to support the upcoming Jakarta Persistence 4.0 https://jakarta.ee/specifications/persistence/4.0/ specification, while still maintaining the baseline for Jakarta Persistence 3.2; and a refactor of support for the Redis JSON API https://redis.io/json/ with a new interface that defines numerous subinterfaces for JSON operations along with the ability for the and classes to implement the interface with raw-value slicing. Spring Cloud The first milestone release https://spring.io/blog/2026/09/24/spring-cloud-2026-0-0-M1-has-been-released of Spring Cloud https://spring.io/projects/spring-cloud 2026.0.0, codenamed Paddington, delivers notable changes such as: an new interface that allows for applications to be notified through HTTP when a configuration change has been detected; and a refactor of the and classes to deny requests from an untrusted proxy. This release is based on Spring Boot 4.2.0-M2. Spring Security The second milestone release https://spring.io/blog/2026/09/24/spring-security-7-2-0-M2-available-now of Spring Security https://spring.io/projects/spring-security 7.2.0 ships with bug fixes, dependency upgrades and new features such as: the ability to annotate the interface with ; and a simplified null provider check on the class. More details on this release may be found in the release notes https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-security/releases/tag/7.2.0-M2 . Spring for GraphQL The first milestone release of Spring for GraphQL https://spring.io/projects/spring-graphql 2.1.0 provides dependency upgrades and new features such as: the ability to reject unsupported HTTP methods at configuration time; and new builders added to the and classes to support HTTP GET requests. Further details on this release may be found in the release notes https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-graphql/releases/tag/v2.1.0-M1 . Spring Integration The second milestone release https://spring.io/blog/2026/09/24/spring-integration-7-2-0-m2-released of Spring Integration https://spring.io/projects/spring-integration 7.2.0 delivers bug fixes, documentation improvements, dependency upgrades and new features such as: a new class that serves as an a message-driven inbound channel adapter to select between two listeners; and a migration from the Spring Framework to in the Mail Java DSL https://docs.spring.io/spring-integration/reference/mail.html . More details on this release may be found in the release notes https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-integration/releases/tag/v7.2.0-M2 and what's new https://docs.spring.io/spring-integration/reference/7.2/whats-new.html page. Spring AI The first milestone release https://spring.io/blog/2026/09/25/spring-ai-2-1-0-M1-available-now of Spring AI https://spring.io/projects/spring-ai 2.1.0 ships with dependency upgrades and new features such as: a new interface, and corresponding implementations, for handling various parts of a message to accurately represent the messages that the current models actually return; and a new class that communicates with the OpenAI /v1/responses endpoint and the existing class. Further details on this release may be found in the release notes https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-ai/releases/tag/v2.1.0-M1 . Spring Batch The second milestone release https://spring.io/blog/2026/09/24/spring-batch-6 of Spring Batch https://spring.io/projects/spring-batch 6.1.0 provides bug fixes, documentation improvements, dependency upgrades and new features such as: a new class to define various Spring Batch constants; and the ability to accept a resource pattern in the class to more conveniently specify resource locations. More details on this release may be found in the release notes https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-batch/releases/tag/v6.1.0-M2 . Spring AMQP The second milestone release https://spring.io/blog/2026/09/24/spring-amqp-4-2-0-m2-available of Spring AMQP https://spring.io/projects/spring-amqp 4.2.0 delivers bug fixes, documentation improvements, dependency upgrades and new features such as: improved null validation in the and classes; and the ability to register custom implementations of the interface. Further details on this release may be found in the release notes https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-amqp/releases/tag/v4.2.0-M2 . Spring for Apache Kafka The second milestone release of Spring for Apache Kafka https://spring.io/projects/spring-kafka 4.2.0 ships with bug fixes, documentation improvements, dependency upgrades and new features such as: support for applying nullability annotations defined in JSpecify https://jspecify.dev/ ; and an instance of the class is now allowed to configure a class. More details on this release may be found in the release notes https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-kafka/releases/tag/v4.2.0-M2 . Spring LDAP The first milestone release of Spring LDAP https://spring.io/projects/spring-ldap 4.2.0 provides bug fixes, dependency upgrades and new features such as: enable post-processing of the class in the interface before being directed to a or interface; and the ability to customize the remove-by-value decision within the class. Further details on this release may be found in the release notes https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-ldap/releases/tag/4.2.0-M1 . Spring Web Services The first milestone release https://spring.io/blog/2026/09/24/spring-ws-5-1-0-M1-available-now of Spring Web Services https://spring.io/projects/spring-ws 5.1.0 delivers bug fixes, dependency upgrades and new features such as: a new handleInvalidXmlException method, added to the class, to support implementation of SOAP/JMS when an is thrown; and support for observability by integrating with the Micrometer Observation API https://docs.micrometer.io/micrometer/reference/observation.html for metrics and tracing of web service exchanges. More details on this release may be found in the release notes https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-ws/releases/tag/v5.1.0-M1 and this wiki page https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-ws/wiki/Spring-Web-Services-5.1.0-M1-Release-Notes .