Microsoft is excited to be sponsoring and participating in Devnexus 2021, and you might be wondering—what is Microsoft doing with Java? Quite a bit actually! We’ve been busy releasing new features and functionality to support Java apps on Azure, contributing to open-source projects, and improving our developer tools experience. Read on to find out more about Java at Microsoft and a get a preview of our sessions at Devnexus this year.
Java at Microsoft
You might be surprised to learn that in addition to helping developers run Java apps on Azure, Microsoft uses Java extensively in our own applications and operations. Java is at the heart of some of our most popular products like LinkedIn, Minecraft, and Yammer. We use several Java-based systems behind the scenes like Apache Kafka, Spark, and Zookeeper to help manage Azure infrastructure.
As part of our work on Java we support and contribute to some key open-source projects. In recent months we’ve contributed directly to the OpenJDK, including ports and performance enhancements. We have a large effort in the Spring community to provide integrations for Azure services, and GitHub support projects from OpenJDK, Quarkus, and Apache with free compute cycles for CI/CD and code scanning.
Recent announcements for Java on Azure
On the product and feature side we’ve also been very active. Azure’s first party service for running Spring Boot applications, Azure Spring Cloud, became generally available last September and since then we’ve had several more releases.
We’ve been working with Oracle and IBM to make it easier to run Java EE/Jakarta EE applications on Azure Virtual Machines and containers. You can now run Oracle WebLogic Server on Azure VMs with Azure Marketplace offers that provision VMs running WebLogic in various configurations. In November, we announced guidance and solutions to run WebLogic on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) using the validated WebLogic Operator. In December, we released solutions to run WebSphere Liberty/Open Liberty on Azure Red Hat OpenShift (ARO). This is just the start of our work, with more support and solutions for Java EE on Azure coming soon.
Most recently, we announced that Application Performance Monitoring (APM) is now fully integrated with Azure Spring Cloud. This functionality is powered by Application Insights (part of Azure Monitor) and lets you monitor your Spring applications with no code changes – just deploy and start monitoring.
Java on Azure developer tools and resources
Java on Azure is all about choice and that includes developer tools and integrations. You can use your favorite IDEs with Azure Toolkits for IntelliJ and Eclipse and deploy apps directly to Azure. We have plugins for Maven and Gradle that let you natively build and interact with Azure services. And you can automate your workflows and deployments with GitHub Actions, Jenkins, and Terraform.
We’ve also been working to ensure Java developers have a great experience with VS Code by adding essential functionality with Java focused extensions. A recent update to the VS Code Project Manager for Java adds support for several new features, including “Run” and “Update” directly from the project explorer view and key bindings. You can visit our developer tools documentation to learn about all the support for Java.
Check out our sessions at Devnexus 2021
Now for the main event! Microsoft has several sessions and two half-day workshops at Devnexus on a variety of topics. The list below includes all the details, so mark your calendars and be sure to use this link for a 50% discount on Day 2 Microsoft workshop tickets.
Running Spring in a Serverless environment (Track: Cloud Technology)
Presented by Julien Dubois – Java Developer Advocacy Manager at Microsoft
Date/time: Wednesday, February 17 | 11:25 AM EST
Details: Julien will do a deep dive into Spring Cloud Function and show how you can deploy your Spring Boot applications to serverless platforms. You’ll also learn about performance and per-request billing and compare running code with the JVM and GraalVM to see what to really expect in production.
Effective Kubernetes for Jakarta EE and MicroProfile Developers (Track: Cloud Technology)
Presented by Reza Rahman – Principal Program Manager for Java on Azure at Microsoft
Date/time: Wednesday, February 17 | 2:30 PM EST
Details: There are several key techniques to understand while using Kubernetes with Jakarta EE and MicroProfile applications. This demo driven session will cover topics like how K8s primitives align with application server administration, how to use Prometheus/Grafana, and how to use Operators for cluster management. You’ll get access to demos on GitHub to explore further after the session.
Memory, why you need to care and what you can do about it (Track: Core Java)
Presented by Kirk Pepperdine – Principal Engineer at Microsoft
Date/time: Wednesday, February 17 | 2:30 PM EST
Details: Come learn about the true cost of memory in Java and why our observability is failing us. Better yet, you’ll learn what we can do about it. Kirk comes at this topic with a wealth of experience; he is the author of jPDM, a performance diagnostic model that helps people to quickly identify the root cause of performance regressions.
Introduction to Azure Spring Cloud (On demand demo)
Presented by Asir Selvasingh – Principal Program Manager for Java on Azure at Microsoft
Details: Azure Spring Cloud abstracts away the complexity of infrastructure and Spring Cloud middleware management, so you can focus on building your applications and let Azure take care of dynamic scaling, patches, security, compliance, and high availability. With a few steps, you can provision Azure Spring Cloud, create apps, deploy, and start monitoring in minutes. Learn more in this demo session and see how easy it is to get started.
Java EE on Azure (Day 2 Workshop)
Presented by Reza Rahman – Principal Program Manager for Java on Azure at Microsoft
Date/time: Thursday, February 18 | 9:00AM – 1:00PM EST
Details: This workshop will show you the many ways of effectively deploying a Java EE/Jakarta EE application to Azure. You’ll learn the trade-offs of each deployment option, with guidance for which approach might be best for your application on the cloud. At the end of the workshop, you’ll have first-hand exposure and be prepared to develop your own Java EE/Jakarta EE applications on Azure.
DevOps for Java Shops (Day 2 Workshop)
Presented by Brian Benz - Senior Developer Advocate at Microsoft
Date/time: Thursday, February 18 | 1:30PM – 5:30PM EST
Details: DevOps is great, if you have the people, processes, and tools to support it. In this session Brian will highlight the easiest ways for developers to work with their IT organizations and partners to deliver their Java code to the cloud using GitHub, including the best ways to reliably make updates and maintain production Java code.
Don’t forget to visit our virtual booth to chat with experts during the event and access more resources.
Learn more and get started
Want to learn more about developing your Java applications on Azure? Here are a few key resources:
- Start with our new Java on Azure learning path on Microsoft Learn to discover all the ways you can run Java applications on Azure
- Visit our developer docs center for all our Java on Azure documentation, including QuickStart guides and tutorials
- Sign up for a free Azure account and get 12 months of free services
We’re excited to see what you build on Azure, and we hope you have great Devnexus 2021!
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