When Microsoft was founded more than 45 years ago, it was a developer tools company, and its first product was a programming language. During his keynote at the virtual Microsoft Build developer’s conference, Scott Guthrie, executive vice-president of cloud and AI group, said developers and the platforms they use have been “core to Microsoft’s DNA ever since.”

And it has never been a better time to be a developer.

“Digital transformation that was projected to happen over the next 10 years is happening today,” Microsoft chief executive officer Satya Nadella said during his keynote. “As computing becomes embedded in every aspect of our lives, there will no longer be such a thing as the tech sector. The world will be transformed through tech intensity at scale. Every organization will not only need to adopt the latest technology, but more importantly build their own unique digital technology or be left behind. Over the past two years, the number of developers at non-tech companies has grown faster than at tech companies.

“This conference is not about setting new rules or constraints that dictate how or what you should build.”

At the conference, Microsoft made more than 100 announcements, including new features and functions aimed at providing that help to developers. Here are some highlights:

Given Microsoft’s focus on cloud, Azure received the most love at Build, with 24 specific announcements and a few more for services or products related to it.

Azure AI contains three new components to help developers modernize common business processes. Azure Bot Service now contains a visual authoring canvas with extensible open-source tools allowing the addition of speech and telephony capabilities. Azure Metrics Advisor, now generally available, uses machine learning to find and provide insights on anomalies in telemetry from sensors, products, and business metrics. Azure Video Analyzer, now in preview, combines Live Video Analytics and Video Indexer into a single service.

Two components of Azure Cognitive Services, Document Translator and Text Analytics for Health, have emerged from preview and are now generally available.

Azure Machine Learning managed endpoints, which help developers build and deploy models quickly, is now in preview. It includes infrastructure monitoring and log analytics.

PyTorch Enterprise has been introduced on Microsoft Azure. Microsoft is working with PyTorch to create the PyTorch Enterprise Support Program to provide users with a more reliable production experience.

Azure App Services are now in preview as Azure Arc enabled, letting them run on Kubernetes clusters anywhere.

Native support for WebSocket APIs in Azure API Management is now in preview.

Azure Communication Services will receive multiple new intelligent features. Now in preview: a UI library to allow developers to build custom experiences, Traversal Using Relays around NAT (TURN) protocol support to allow voice and video between web or mobile apps, and Azure Communication Services Calling SDK for Windows Universal Platform to allow developers to add voice and video calling to native Windows apps. Entering preview sometime in June are Call recording for Azure Communication Services and Direct Routing for Azure Communication Services.

Azure Logic Apps now offer new hosting options, plus better integration with Visual Studio Code. Microsoft has also announced a new standard pricing tier, as well as 4000 additional actions in the pay-per-use consumption tier.

Two new Azure Marketplace offers make it easier for customers to move their Java apps to Azure. Offers for Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform are jointly supported by Red Hat and Microsoft and offers for WebSphere Application Server receive joint support from Microsoft and IBM.

The Microsoft build of OpenJDK is a free long-term support version of OpenJDK, a reference implementation of the Java SE platform. It is now generally available.

Durable Functions, an extension to Azure Functions for the creation of serverless workflows, now supports PowerShell, and is generally available.

Microsoft is previewing a series of updates to its Azure analytics tools. Azure Synapse Link for Dataverse lets developers working in Power Apps or Dynamics 365 bring their Dataverse environment to Azure Synapse. Azure Synapse support for Spark 3.0 and Synapse Apache Spark Hardware will improve the performance of Apache Spark workloads. Azure Purview, a data classification and governance service, now supports Azure Database for MySQL and Azure Database for PostgreSQL.

Azure Cosmos DB received a herd of updates, including an expanded free tier giving 1,000 request units provisioned throughput and 25 GB storage per month for the lifetime of one Azure Cosmos DB account per Azure subscription. New features in preview are: Azure Cosmos DB Linux emulator, partial document update, Cosmos DB integrated cache, and Always Encrypted for Azure Cosmos DB. Azure Cosmos DB serverless and Azure Cosmos DB role-based access control are now generally available.

Two new pricing tiers for Azure Databases for PostgreSQL and Azure Database for MySQL Flexible Server include a soon-to-be-available 12-month offer for customers signing up for a free Azure account that provides up to 750 hours free. Additionally, Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Hyperscale now has a single node basic tier, available in preview in the eastern United States (more regions coming soon).

Azure SQL Database offers ledger capabilities to provide cryptographic verification for enterprise customers with sensitive data. It is now in preview.

.NET 6 Preview 4 is available, with a slew of new features including Visual Studio support for its multi-platform app UI that lets developers build apps for Windows, MacOS, iOS and Android with a single codebase, ASP.NET Blazor hybrid apps, and more device targets including Apple silicon and ARM64. It also includes performance improvements.

Visual Studio 2019 16.10, with productivity enhancements and enhanced Docker and Azure tooling, is now generally available.

Azure app services are now Arc-enabled, allowing them to be used on-premises or on other cloud services through Azure Arc.

Azure Arc-enabled Open Service Mesh (OSM), which simplified integration between OSM and Arc-enabled Kubernetes clusters, is now in preview.

Azure Kubernetes Services on Azure Stack HCI is now generally available. Azure Stack HCI, a cloud-connected hyperconverged infrastructure operating system delivered as an Azure service, also received new multicluster monitoring in the Azure Portal.

Azure Bicep, an open-source language for deploying Azure resources as code, is releasing version 0.4 in June; it adds a new bicep linter, simplified code structures, and code validation.

Azure Monitor‘s latest update adds two features in preview: easy onboarding of Application Insights for Java apps on Azure App Services, and sharable query packs of log analytics.

Elastic and Microsoft are developing a native Azure experience, now in preview. Users can find, deploy, and manage Elastic from within the Azure portal.

Azure IoT has announced that updates are generally available. Azure IoT Edge has been updated to include nesting capabilities, and Azure IoT Edge for Linux on Windows, also known as EFLOW, has been released.

In addition to the Teams updates, there were four announcements aimed at Microsoft Graph.

All the Teams updates announced at Microsoft Build 2021

Users of the low code Power Platform received eight new goodies to enjoy:

You’ll find more detail on all of these updates by following the links in the Microsoft Build Book of News.

Source: IT World Canada

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