Configuring a software system in a monolithic approach does not pose particular problems. To make the configuration properties available to the system, we can store them in a file inside an application folder, in some place in the filesystem, or as OS environment variables. Microservice configuration is a more complex subject. We have to deal with a number, which can be huge, of totally independent services, each with its own configuration. We could even face a scenario in which several instances of the same service need different configuration values.
In such a situation, a way to centralize and simplify configuration management would be of great importance. Spring Cloud has its own module to solve these problems, named Spring Cloud Config. This module provides an implementation of a server that exposes an API to retrieve the configuration information, usually stored in some remote repository like Git, and, at the same time, it gives us the means to implement the client side meant to consume the services of that API.
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