I am pleased to announce that Spring Boot 1.2.0.M1 is available now in the Spring milestone repository. This release builds on Spring Framework 4.1 and provides a number of improvements and new features. Highlights include:

• Support for distributed JTA transactions across multiple XA resources using either an Atomkos or Bitronix embedded transaction manager or a full Java EE Application Server.
• Easier configuration of JNDI bound DataSource and ConnectionFactory beans.
• Improved JMS support, including auto-configuration for the Spring Framework 4.1 @EnableJms annotation.
• Auto-configuration support for spring-cloud.
• Easier SSL configuration for both Tomcat and Jetty.
• Improved DataSource Metrics and Health Indicators.

For a complete list of changes, and for upgrade instructions, see the Spring Boot 1.2 Release Notes on the WIKI. The reference documentation as also been updated to cover the new features.

Thanks again to everyone that has contributed to the release! Please give it a go and report any problems using the project Issue tracker page.