You can ensure that a custom Auto Configuration is processed after a specific Auto Configuration by using the @AutoConfigureAfter annotation and specifying the class or classes that should be processed before your custom configuration. This allows you to define the order of Auto Configuration processing. The other options do not provide a direct way to control the order of Auto Configuration.

Connection pooling is a technique used to minimize the overhead of opening and closing database connections in a Spring Boot application. It involves creating a pool of pre-initialized database connections that can be reused, reducing the time and resources required to establish new connections each time a database interaction is needed.

To optimize the performance of Spring Data JPA repositories with large datasets, it's essential to write custom, optimized SQL queries using the @Query annotation. Custom queries can be tailored for specific retrieval needs, often improving performance over auto-generated queries. While the other options can contribute to performance, writing optimized queries is the most direct way to address large dataset performance concerns.

To make a method in a @Controller annotated class in Spring Boot write directly to the response body, you should use the @ResponseBody annotation. This annotation is used to indicate that the return value of the method should be serialized directly to the HTTP response body. The other options have different purposes, such as defining request mappings, specifying controller types, or handling path variables.

The /metrics endpoint in Spring Boot Actuator is specifically used for exposing application metrics. This endpoint provides valuable information about your application's performance, such as memory usage, garbage collection statistics, and custom metrics you can define. Monitoring these metrics is crucial for ensuring the health and performance of your Spring Boot application.

In a Spring Boot application, you can map application-specific exceptions to HTTP status codes using the @ResponseStatus annotation in custom exception classes. This allows you to define the specific HTTP status code to return when a particular exception is thrown, providing fine-grained control over error responses. The other options are not standard practices for mapping exceptions to HTTP status codes in Spring Boot.

The correct annotation to secure methods in Spring Security is @Secured. This annotation allows you to specify which roles or authorities are required to access a particular method.

The @DataJpaTest annotation in Spring Boot is used for testing the persistence layer. It slices the application context and loads only the relevant beans related to data JPA, making it efficient for testing data access operations.

In Spring Boot, to manually wire a bean, you would use the "getBean()" method of the ApplicationContext. This method allows you to retrieve a bean from the Spring container by its name or class. The other options, such as "registerBean()," "wireBean()," and "fetchBean()," do not represent the correct method used for manual bean retrieval and wiring in Spring Boot.

In Spring Boot, you can use the @Value annotation to inject the value of a specific property into a field. This annotation allows you to inject property values from your application.properties or application.yml file directly into your Spring components, making it convenient to access configuration properties within your application code.