Microsoft Azure debuted in 2010 as the company’s answer to Amazon Web Services (AWS), the public cloud platform that launched four years earlier to provide online services for websites and client-side applications. By using these services in their applications, developers could gain a more efficient development process and build complex apps without having to reinvent the basic frameworks that underpin crucial app infrastructure. Azure has experienced tremendous growth over the past decade, as well as many changes that have greatly impacted how .NET developers—and other developers—interact with the cloud platform.
Azure Is Big in Multicloud
Microsoft Azure has become a major player in multicloud environments, even among AWS users. According to the 2019 Trends in Cloud Transformation survey from 451 Research, which surveyed 310 attendees at the AWS re:Invent conference, 35% of respondents said their organization actively uses both Azure and AWS, and 18% reported using all of the top-three public cloud providers—AWS, Azure and Google Cloud.
The study also found that even with all the monitoring tools and features offered by the big three cloud providers, IT teams continue to struggle to “establish and maintain visibility” into what’s going on inside their cloud environments. To manage these systems effectively, technical teams need new monitoring tools and methods built for the cloud.
Although AWS remains the market leader in the public cloud space, major corporations are embracing Microsoft Azure in a big way. Today more than 95% of Fortune 500 companies use Azure, which recently reported an impressive 68% year-over-year growth rate, says Microsoft.
Huge JEDI Deal May Change Perceptions of Azure
Microsoft Azure recently won a massive U.S. Defense Department public cloud contract that could be worth as much as $10 billion over a decade. The Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) Cloud deal will likely boost Azure’s status in the public cloud market, particularly among potential enterprise and government customers.
.NET Core 3.0 and Azure
Microsoft continues to transition developers away from the proprietary, Windows-only .NET Framework to .NET Core, its open source, cross-platform solution. Case in point: .NET 4.8 will be the last release of .NET Framework, making .NET Core the future of the .NET. platform. In November 2020, Microsoft plans to release .NET 5, which will unite .Net Framework and .NET Core. Azure is an excellent match for .NET Core applications, offering broad, cross-platform support and a solid set of foundational infrastructure and platform services for hosting these apps.
AppDynamics recently announced support for .NET Core 3.0, with enhanced support for App Service Web Apps, WebJobs and Azure Functions. Our agent now supports .NET Core 3.0 running both on-premises and in the cloud, providing out-of-the-box visibility into ASP.NET Core 3.0 transactions for end-to-end monitoring, as well as automated root cause analysis using AppDynamics’ advanced AL/ML.
For an in-depth look at Azure and .NET, download AppDynamics’ eBook, What .NET Developers Need to Know About Azure.
Azure Continues to Innovate
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently unveiled a host of powerful new Azure tools at Microsoft Ignite 2019, the company’s enterprise developer conference. Highlights include:
- Azure Arc: Currently available in preview, Arc extends Azure’s well-established hybrid cloud capabilities by extending Azure services and management to customers on other clouds or infrastructure, including those from Amazon and Google.
- Azure Quantum: Microsoft’s new full-stack, open source cloud quantum system will bring the power of quantum computing to organizations. Azure Quantum will include a series of tutorials and tools, and developers will be able to build programs with Q, a high-level quantum-focused programming language, and Microsoft’s Quantum Development Kit (QDK).
- Azure Synapse Analytics: Rather than having to maintain two flavors of analytical systems— data warehouses and data lakes—enterprises can use Microsoft’s new Azure Synapse Analytics to unite enterprise data warehousing and big data analytics.
AppDynamics Provides Strong Azure Support
AppDynamics is the premiere choice for enterprises’ cloud migration initiatives, and our Application Intelligence Platform provides real-time visibility into all application services running in Azure. Thanks to our strategic partnership with Microsoft, developers can gain deep insights into their applications running on Azure.
We recently announced expanded support for Serverless APM for Azure Functions in App Service, which supports instrumenting .NET-based applications and microservices. Using AppDynamics Azure Site Extension for .NET, you now can deploy our latest .NET Agent to monitor Azure Functions. Read all about AppDynamics’ powerful monitoring tools for Microsoft Azure, as well as our enhanced support for Azure services.