Apps on Azure Blog

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Your ultimate guide to Azure app innovation at Microsoft Build 2023

Microsoft

May 18, 2023

This has been an incredible year for app innovation, with new solutions, new plans, and new capabilities from Azure to help you rapidly build, deploy, and secure apps at scale. It is a lot to keep up with, we know! This is why we’re excited to bring you this curated list of Azure app innovation sessions, labs, and demos at Microsoft Build 2023!

Azure app innovation strategy meets you where you are with a full range of offerings to migrate and modernize existing apps, build intelligent cloud-native apps, and embrace low-code apps that help you do more with less.

App migration and modernization with .NET and Java

In the current economy, organizations are turning to the cloud to not only help them save on capital expenses but also leverage the platform-as-a-service to meet the shortage of cloud skills. There has never been a more important time to set yourself up to compete better using the automation, scale, and security of running your enterprise apps in the cloud. Here are some featured sessions to help accelerate your app migration and modernization journey.

Breakout Sessions:

Kickstart your .NET modernization journey with the RWA pattern

Speakers: Nish Anil; Matt Soucoup

The reliable web app pattern helps migrate web apps to the cloud with high performance, security, reliability, and operations. Based on the Azure Well-Architected Framework, it sets a strong foundation for future modernization in Microsoft Azure. Learn how to optimize cost and performance with minimal changes from on-premises to Azure. Join us to improve your web app's reliability in Azure with best practices.

Modernize .NET and Java web apps in Azure App Service

Speakers: Gaurav Seth; Kunal Babre; Brian Benz; Kristina Halfdane

Web app developers have many choices for running their on-premises applications in the cloud, but knowing where to start is a challenge. Learn the easiest ways to deliver apps to the cloud with Azure, see demos using free SDKs and tools available on GitHub, discover fully managed Azure services that can be leveraged to quickly deploy and run apps, and find new tools to help get immediate value from the cloud. If you have Java or .NET web apps running on Windows or Linux, this session is for you!

Demo: Automatic scaling for Azure App Service web apps

Learn how to configure automatic scaling for web apps. This exciting new feature allows web apps to scale out and scale in based on incoming HTTP requests. You can simply turn on the automatic scaling for App Service plans without configuring any rules. Watch how this feature can help you quickly scale your cloud apps to meet customer demand.

Demo: Effortless app troubleshooting with AI-powered recommendations

Leverage the power of AI to get personalized troubleshooting for your Azure resources. Our chatbot will provide you with relevant information on how to diagnose and resolve common issues, as well as suggest diagnostic tools in-suite to help you identify the root cause of any problems. With this feature, you can quickly get the answers you need without sifting through endless documentation.

Lab: Modernize with .NET on Azure App Service

If you are new to .NET on Azure App Service, in this lab, learn about Azure platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and tools designed natively for .NET apps. Also, learn about Azure Migrate for .NET which quickly scans .NET Framework apps to identify ready to move apps, recommends changes if it finds known issues, and generates a detailed solution assessment. This reduces the manual effort involved in modernizing your applications and accelerates the time to value.

Pre-recorded: Azure Spring Apps: The easy way to run your apps

Azure Spring Apps is a fully managed service from Microsoft and VMware. It solves the challenges of running Spring apps at cloud scale by removing the need to worry about infrastructure, application lifecycle, monitoring, container intricacies, and Kubernetes. This session is for developers who are looking to learn what Azure Spring Apps is all about. We start the session with a technical overview and demos so you can see how it works, and what capabilities it has.

Ask the experts:

Multiple opportunities for you to directly ask questions to Azure experts on the latest product announcements, technical guidance, opensource technologies, cost saving options, and more.

Azure API Management

APIs enable digital experiences, simplify application integration, underpin new digital products, and make data and services reusable and universally accessible. With the proliferation and increasing dependency on APIs, organizations need to manage them as first-class assets throughout their lifecycle. Azure API Management is a hybrid, multicloud management platform for APIs across all environments. As a platform-as-a-service, API Management supports the complete API lifecycle. These sessions below highlight how Azure can bring you the tools you need to operate confidently with your APIs.

Breakout Session:

Secure and observe your APIs no matter where they run

Speakers: Fernando Mejia

As the number of APIs continues to grow rapidly, managing them has become increasingly complex. Attend this session to discover how Azure API Management can help you efficiently manage and secure APIs at scale. Join this session and learn about: -How to streamline management of APIs using API gateways and management platform -Best practices for testing and monitoring APIs -The latest Azure capabilities to identify API vulnerabilities and protect against threats

Lab: The ins and outs of securing your APIs

Sensitive and essential information is exchanged among users, APIs, and the applications and systems they interface with. If an API is not secure, it can become a vulnerable point for hackers to breach an otherwise safe network. In this session, we practically publish a vulnerable API to Azure API Management and learn how to secure the API using Defender for APIs.

Ask the experts:

Best practices for running an API stewardship program, Q&A

Building APIs that are easy to use, fit to purpose, scalable, maintainable, and consistent across your product can make the difference between success and failure for your software. In this session, we explore the API stewardship journey at Azure and provide best practices, how to (and how not to) adopt an API first strategy at your organization.

Cloud-native apps

Cloud-native technologies empower organizations to build and run scalable applications in modern, dynamic environments such as public, private, and hybrid clouds. Containers, serverless, service meshes, microservices, immutable infrastructure, and declarative APIs exemplify this approach. Combined with robust automation, they allow engineers to make high-impact changes frequently and predictably with minimal toil. Cloud-native is about speed and agility. These sessions showcase how we are enabling business capabilities to become weapons of strategic transformation that accelerate business velocity and growth.

Breakout Sessions:

Building and scaling cloud-native, intelligent applications on Azure

Speakers: Scott Hunter, Brendan Burns

Learn how to run cloud-native serverless and container applications in Azure using Azure Kubernetes Service and Azure Container Applications. We help you choose the right service for your apps. We show you how Azure is the best platform for hosting cloud native and intelligent apps, and an app using Azure OpenAI Service and Azure Data. Learn all the new capabilities of our container platforms including how to deploy, test for scale, monitor, and much more.

Deliver apps from code to cloud with Azure Kubernetes Service

Speakers: Jorge Palma, Ahmed Sabbour

Do you want to build and run cloud-native apps in Microsoft Azure with ease and confidence? Do you want to leverage the power and flexibility of Kubernetes, without the hassle and complexity of managing it yourself? Or maybe you want to learn about the latest and greatest features and integrations that Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) has to offer? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then this session is for you!

Focus on code, not infra with Azure Functions, Azure Spring Apps, Dapr

Speakers: Ramya Oruganti, Asir Selvasignh, Anthony Chu

Explore an easy on-ramp to build your APIs with containers in the cloud. Experience how easy it is to build an application that uses Azure Spring APIs to send messages to a Dapr enabled message broker, triggering optimized processing with Azure Functions. Just focus on code with no infrastructure management for true high productivity developer experience. The key takeaway highlights how to manage multi type microservice solution development with Dapr while scaling dynamically using KEDA.

Integrating Azure AI and Azure Kubernetes Service to build intelligent apps

Speakers: Paul Yu, Jorge Palma

Build intelligent apps that leverage Azure AI services for natural language processing, machine learning, Azure OpenAI Service with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and other Azure application platform services. Learn best practices to help you achieve optimal scalability, reliability and automation with CI/CD using GitHub. By the end of this session, you will have a better understanding of how to build and deploy intelligent applications on Azure that deliver measurable impact.

Modernizing your applications with containers and serverless

Speakers: Kamala Dasika, Devanshi Joshi

Dive into how cloud-native architectures and technologies can be applied to help build resilient and modern applications. Learn how to use technologies like containers, Kubernetes and serverless integrated with other application ecosystem services to build and deploy microservices architecture on Microsoft Azure. Discover how Barracuda Networks’ application modernization journey with containers and serverless to fuel accelerated growth. This discussion is ideal for developers, architects, and IT pros who want to learn how to effectively leverage Azure services to build, run and scale modern cloud-native applications.

Seamlessly integrate security throughout your code to cloud workflow

Speakers: Brendan Burns, Levant Besik, Rita Zhang, David Tragano, Collin Davis

Learn how to build secure cloud-native apps with simplified, automated security integrated within your workflow. Implement native security scanning in your repos and pipelines using code, secret, and dependency scanning with clear remediation guidance with GitHub Advanced Security and Microsoft Defender for DevOps. Pair with container security tooling that helps you deploy trusted containers to Azure. Secure your external identity management to reduce fraud and identity takeover.

Securing container deployments on Azure Kubernetes Service with open-source tools

Speaker: Joshua Duffney

Containers have revolutionized the way applications are deployed and managed. With increased adoption comes a pressing need for container security. It is crucial to ensure only trusted images are deployed. In this talk, discover two crucial technologies - Notation and Ratify. Learn how to configure them to secure container deployments on AKS. Notation provides image signing and verification capabilities, while Ratify is a Kubernetes admission controller validates images prior to deploying.

Build scalable, cloud-native apps with Kubernetes and Azure Cosmos DB

Speakers: Mark Brown, Pavneet Ahluwalia

Develop, deploy, and scale cloud-native applications that are high-performance, fast, and can handle traffic bursts with ease. Explore the latest news and capabilities for Azure Kubernetes Service and Azure Cosmos DB, and hear from Rockwell Automation about how they've used Azure's cloud-scale app and data services to create global applications.

Cloud-native development with .NET 8

Speakers: Brady Gaster, Immo Landwerth

Join us to learn about .NET for cloud-native development. Discover updates in .NET 8.0 with new libraries for high-performance services on any cloud. Native AOT makes apps smaller and faster. .NET's Open Telemetry support provides end-to-end visibility. See demos of .NET 8.0 and the future of cloud-native development, plus a special announcement. Don't miss out!

Demo: Build and deploy an intelligent app with AKS and OSS

Using a combination of open-source technologies and Azure apps, data, and AI services, build a scalable and flexible cloud-native app. Join this session to see a demonstration of the app built on open-source technologies for insights and best practices on building apps with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Azure Cognitive Services, Azure Cosmos DB, Dapr, KEDA, and more.

Demo: Build Intelligent Microservices with Azure Container Apps

Azure Container Apps (ACA) is a great place to run intelligent microservices, APIs, event-driven apps, and more. Infuse AI with Azure Container Apps, leverage adaptable design patterns with Dapr, and explore flexible containerized compute for microservices across serverless or dedicated options.

Demo: New confidential container offerings in Microsoft Azure

New confidential container offerings allow you to migrate your sensitive containerized workloads to Azure, without code changes, and with tools for attestation of the underlying hardware-based trusted execution environment. Confidential containers can isolate and protect containers, while in use in memory, with their own hardware generated encryption key. We demo confidential containers in Kubernetes.

Demo: Codespaces to Azure in minutes with the Azure Developer CLI

Learn how to use application templates and the Azure Developer CLI (AZD) to go from your local dev environment to the cloud, in a single step and in just a couple of minutes. Pair AZD with in-editor Azure tools for end-to-end workflow support, including project initialization, provisioning infrastructure, deploying code, monitoring your app, and scaffolding a CI/CD pipeline to test against real Azure resources.

Demo: Further, faster with Azure Functions and Azure SQL integration

Azure SQL and Azure Functions are a powerful duo for building flexible and performant applications. The integration between Azure Functions and Azure SQL reduces the boilerplate code required to create your application whether you are building a fleet of microservices or a single solution. In these demos we show how to invoke a function from SQL data changes with the functions SQL trigger and how to easily read and write from a SQL database with input and output bindings.

Lab: Taking Azure Kubernetes Service out of the cloud and into your world

Did you know that Azure Kubernetes Service is now available as managed service not just in Microsoft Azure, but also outside of it on Windows operating systems? In this session we show you how you can take AKS outside of Azure to support on-premises and edge deployments using AKS Edge Essentials. AKS EE provides the right-sized Kubernetes distribution that allows to scale to tens of thousands device deployments.

Lab: Build a serverless web application end-to-end on Microsoft Azure

Want to build a modern, scalable, composable, serverless web application using best-in-class developer tools and cloud native technologies - but you don't know how to get started? We have you covered! Join us for this lab where we go from application specification (user stories) to a scalable, managed deployment (solution) with code! We use Microsoft Azure "cloud-native" friendly services like Azure Functions, Azure Static Web Apps, Azure Cosmos DB and more.

Lab: Deploy a Quarkus application to Azure Container Apps

Quarkus is the supersonic subatomic Kubernetes Native Java stack, crafted from the best-of-breed Java libraries and standards. In this session, learn how to scaffold a Quarkus web application, then code a to-do application that stores tasks in a relational database, and finally deploy through Azure CLI and host on Azure Container Apps. By the end of this session, you'll incorporate Quarkus applications into Azure Container Apps and integrate them with a relational database.

Lab: Build flexible, intelligent apps with OSS on Microsoft Azure and GitHub Copilot

Learn how to incorporate Kubernetes, Dapr, KEDA, Bicep, advanced AI models, and other OSS technologies into PetSpotR, a cloud-native application that connects owners with their lost pets through photos. This lab takes you through an end-to-end hands-on tutorial using GitHub, Codespaces, and shows you how it was built using AI-assisted programming with GitHub Copilot. By the end of the session, you'll be able to leverage these popular OSS projects and Copilot in your own apps.

Ask the experts:

Multiple opportunities for you to directly ask questions to Azure experts on the latest product announcements, technical guidance, opensource technologies, cost saving options, and more.

Low-code and Power Platform

Using the Power Platform, you can quickly and easily build custom apps using Power Apps, automate workflows to improve business productivity using Power Automate, analyze data for insights using Power BI, rapidly design, configure, and publish modern websites using Power Pages, and build intelligent bots with a no-code interface using Power Virtual Agents. Here are some key featured sessions that help developers to quickly dive into the direction Power Platform is headed.

Breakout Sessions:

The future of app development with the Microsoft Power Platform

Speakers: Charles Lamanna, Bobby Bhamra, Kartik Kanakasabesan, Salem Bacha, April Dunnam, Cherie Quek, Kendra Springer

Today, developers need to deliver high-quality apps faster than ever before. And Power Platform helps – it supercharges productivity and changes development with next-generation AI. Developers can combine Power Platform, Microsoft Azure, Visual Studio, and GitHub to accelerate app development, automation, or build chatbots. Come discover why Power Platform is the world’s most comprehensive and intelligent tool for developers.

Full stack scale with the Microsoft Power Platform

Speakers: Ryan Cunningham, Christy Jefson, Gary Pretty, Leon Welicki

Create and deploy enterprise wide, flagship applications, automations, bots and webpages to millions of users with minimal management overhead. The Power Platform provides an abstraction layer over a hyperscale cloud enabling you iterate faster and choose composable, out-of-box or custom-built code-first components anywhere in the stack. Learn how to build full stack scale applications in a fraction of the time, boosting productivity and offering significant development cost reductions.

AI innovation in the Microsoft Power Platform

Speakers: Norah Liu, Gary Pretty, Ashvini Sharma, Priya Vaidyanathan

The latest AI Copilot innovations that drive efficiencies for developers are here, such as our new investments in GPT and Copilot, designed to boost developer productivity. Learn more about how you can use GPT models with natural language and integrate new intelligent actions from AI Builder powered by Azure OpenAI Service. Join us to learn how these infusions of AI can drive faster and simpler code-first development on the Power Platform.

Accelerate development with Visual Studio and Microsoft Power Platform

Speakers: Joris de Gruyter, Marcel Ferreira, Julia Kasper, Justin Yoo

Learn how Power Platform accelerates innovation for code-first development. Use custom code assets in low-code without leaving Visual Studio. Embark on a journey through API creation in Visual Studio and publish directly to Power Platform. Leverage investments in APIs through Azure API management and expose them in the Power Platform for scalable development. See how code-first development can simply be “turned on” with pre-configured CI/CD and sample code for APIs and Custom UX controls.

Lab: Skill up with Microsoft Power Platform and GitHub

During this lab, learn how a developer can start to build a Microsoft Power Apps component framework in addition to other solutions operations using pro-developer tooling and taking advantage of cross platform authoring capability enabled by GitHub Codespaces.

Demo: Catalog in Microsoft Power Platform for pro developers

Building applications in Power Platform gets faster and easier as you create more apps. Now, developers will have the ability to publish and maintain re-usable solution components across apps, automations, bots, and pages across multiple environments. Learn how the new catalog in Power Platform is driving down the time and cost of application development with every new app you create.

Ask the experts:

Azure Communication Services

Azure Communication Services are cloud-based services with REST APIs and client library SDKs available to help you integrate communication into your applications. You can add communication to your applications without being an expert in underlying technologies such as media encoding or telephony. Here is some featured content to help accelerate your app journey.

In-person Lab: Build an end-to-end customer engagement app with Azure Communication

Join us for a lab focused on building an end-to-end customer engagement app with synchronous interactions through calling and chat including interoperability into Microsoft Teams, as well as asynchronous multichannel communication through email and SMS. You'll learn how to use Azure Communication Services and low-code connectors to set up monitoring, subscribe to notifications and more. By the end of the lab, you’ll have the skills to build an app with multiple communication channels.

Pre-recorded: Build AI-assisted communication workflows for customer engagement

Programmable communication workflows can help your business adapt to changing customer needs in real time. But how can adding automation and AI assisted actions help optimize those customer experiences even more? Learn how Azure Communication Services is changing the landscape of customer engagement with intelligent calling features, automated interoperability into Microsoft Teams, and optimized communication workflows. Testimonials from NICE and Anywhere365.

Pre-recorded: Create custom Virtual Meetings apps with Azure Communication Services and Microsoft Teams

Build an app from scratch to virtually meet with customers in just a few minutes. In this session, we cover how to implement a Virtual Appointments app using no-code, low-code, and pro-code alternatives to get a fully functional app in record time. Learn how to use Azure Communication Services interoperability with Microsoft Teams, the Microsoft Graph Virtual Appointments API, plus integrations with Azure Functions and more.

Pre-recorded: Building on Microsoft Cloud - Audio/video calling from a custom app into a Teams meeting

In today's connected world, communication and teamwork are crucial. Users expect seamless audio/video calls, chats, and real-time interactions. Join Dan Wahlin and Ayca Bas to discover how Microsoft Cloud services can empower your apps with audio/video communication, including Microsoft Teams meeting integration. Post-session, explore a practical tutorial at aka.ms/mscloud-acs-teams-tutorial to elevate your apps with cutting-edge communication tools.

Product Roundtable: AI Infused Omnichannel Communications

Are you curious how you can leverage a Communication Platform to efficiently scale communications with an integrated and personalized approach across multiple channels, creating better customer experience and reducing cost? Join Azure Communication Services in this product roundtable to learn about our AI-infused multichannel communication platform. We’ll discuss your customer communication needs, how Microsoft can help solve them, and how Azure and Teams allow you to position yourself to meet your communication needs today and in the future.

Product Roundtable: Modernizing high volume customer communications platforms

Are you responsible for inbound/outbound customer communications? Are you looking for opportunities to differentiate customer experience and deliver value with agility and efficiency? Join the Azure Communication Services product roundtable to share your challenges and ambitions for delivering customer communication. We’ll dive into your scenarios and brainstorm capabilities that will help you revolutionize your customer experience.

Join us at Microsoft Build 2023!

Microsoft Build 2023 is the best place for you to learn about all the exciting innovations in Azure to help you develop your modern applications strategy. If you haven’t already, visit Microsoft Build to register today and start adding these sessions to your backpack!

Already registered? Tell us what you’re excited to see and share your feedback with us in the comments and discussion forums.

Updated May 18, 2023

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