What is the role and main functions of the Spring Boot Actuator component in Spring-based applications?

Spring Boot Actuator is a module of Spring Boot that provides ready-made tools for monitoring and managing the application during its operation. Its main features include:

• Metrics: collection and display of various indicators (CPU load, memory usage, number of requests, etc.).
• Health checks: verifying the status of application components, such as databases and external services.
• Information endpoints: displaying information about the application version, configuration, environment properties.
• Tracing and auditing: logging and tracking requests.

Actuator allows quick access to important information about the application's state and facilitates diagnostics and support in production.