SpringOne at VMware Explore 2023: Showcasing Innovations and Azure Spring Apps Advances

Hey Spring Developers! Can you believe Spring is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year? We could not have gotten here without millions of Spring developers across the globe, thank you! As we mark this significant milestone, get ready to feel the Vegas vibe at SpringOne 2023, a part of the larger VMware Explore event.

This year’s event, honoring two decades of innovation and growth in Spring, will be bigger and better than ever, drawing over 10,000 attendees from around the globe. With a mix of expert technical content, hands-on workshops, and networking opportunities, it's the place to be for anyone looking to build microservices, web apps, serverless, event-driven, reactive, and cloud workloads across the software industry.

As a Global Diamond and Transformer sponsor, we are ready to make a splash at both VMware Explore and SpringOne. The partnership we initiated with VMware in 2016 has now reached its 8th year and continues to grow stronger. All our activities at this event, reflecting our continued collaboration and innovation, are co-delivered by Microsoft and VMware. Interact with us through the conference, in the exhibit areas, breakout sessions, workshops, theater sessions, and more. We're excited to connect, share, and learn with you! 

Join us to celebrate 20 years of Spring with our hero sessions below:

• SpringOne Keynote: Accelerating Innovation with Spring. Join us to celebrate 20 years of Spring. Adib Saikali of VMware and Asir Selvasingh will deliver how Spring unlocks the power of platforms, specifically focusing on Azure and Azure Spring Apps. Take a dive into how Spring empowers us today to go from code to production at speed thanks to its support for modern application architectures that can run seamlessly on any cloud.
• Making Production as Smooth as Development: Spring Cloud + Azure Spring Apps for Your Mission Critical Apps. Discover how Azure Spring Apps enables you to deliver best-in-class apps by letting you focus on what you do best, writing code! This session will be presented by Microsoft’s Mark Heckler and VMware’s Ryan Baxter.
• Spring into the AI Era: A Practical Exploration for Developers. Step into the exciting world of AI and gain invaluable, hands-on skills that will influence your future in Spring development. This workshop will be led by VMware’s Adib Saikali and Mark Pollack, and Microsoft’s Asir Selvasingh and Neven Cvetkovic.
• Copilot is My Copilot: Pair Programming with an AI. Learn how to level up your development process using GitHub Copilot, an AI code completion tool. This theater session will be led by Microsoft’s Mark Heckler.
• From Zero to Hero: Coding Spring Boot Applications in Visual Studio Code. Get hands-on experience with Java and Spring Boot on Visual Studio Code. This session will be led by Microsoft’s Rory Preddy and VMware’s Udayani V.
• Cloudward Bound: Mastering Spring App Migration in the New Age. Learn how to simplify your cloud migration journey with effective strategies and tools. This theater session will be led by Microsoft’s Mark Heckler and VMware’s Navin Poddar.
• Hands-On Cloud Mastery: Deploying Spring Native Apps with GraalVM. Join our hands-on workshop to master the art of building and deploying Spring Native applications to the cloud. This workshop will be led by Microsoft’s Mark Heckler and Timothy NG, and VMWare’s Candice Quates and Neven Cvetkovic.
• Effortlessly Implement Production-Grade App Architectures with Spring. Explore architecture patterns and learn how to choose the right combination of patterns and technologies for you. This session will be presented by VMWare’s Adib Saikali and Microsoft’s Asir Selvasingh.

Learn and win: Join us for talks at booth S1

Make sure to swing by the Microsoft SpringOne booth in the exhibit area, where we'll be hosting a series of engaging and informative live booth talks and demos. This is an excellent chance to interact directly with our speakers, ask questions, and gain in-depth knowledge about various aspects of Azure Spring Apps.

What’s more, for each booth talk, we're offering two lucky participants the chance to win a stainless-steel coffee mug. All you need to do is join the conversation with our speakers!

Don’t miss out – join us at the Microsoft SpringOne booth (S1) for more fun and gifts!

• Get Cool Swag: We're giving cool SpringOne socks to everyone who completes a survey. It's a fun way to remember your time at the conference. Fill out the survey and grab your socks at our booth (S1).
• Enter Our Raffle: Drop by the Microsoft SpringOne Booth (S1) and participate in the raffle for a chance to win some fantastic prizes, including Microsoft Earbuds and stainless-steel coffee mugs. We'll provide all the details at our booth.
• Customer Event: We're hosting an exclusive SpringOne Gold Party for our VIP ticket holders. This is a special networking event by Microsoft and VMware. Remember to RSVP and make sure you pick up your ticket at the Microsoft SpringOne Booth (S1).

Microsoft and VMWare collaboration continuous

Our collaboration with VMware Tanzu has led to significant enhancements to Azure Spring Apps Enterprise, demonstrating our commitment to providing robust and scalable solutions for Spring developers. Azure Spring Apps Enterprise:

• Offers a Secure Environment for Spring Apps. Comprehensive security includes secure access, secure communications, secrets management, and role-based access control, which underscores its potential to maintain a strong security posture.
• Focusses on Code, Not Infrastructure. Our reliable platform monitors and manages complex infrastructure tasks such as patching, updating, and scaling, so you can concentrate on what matters most -- your code.
• Accelerates Innovation. As the hero destination for Spring Apps, businesses and developers can accelerate innovation, build intelligent applications, and expedite their journey to the cloud.

But that's not all. We're also bringing exciting updates to Azure Spring Apps, our platform that enables you to build, deploy, and scale your applications in the cloud. Here's a recap of our work:

• Enhancements to Azure Spring Apps Enterprise. We now support the deployment of Spring-native image applications, offer an improved Service Level Agreement (SLA) of 99.95%, support for up to 1000 app instances per service instance, and let users bring their own Azure Container Registry (ACR). Plus, Azure Spring Apps Enterprise will extend support for Spring Boot 2.x.x until February 2025.
• Public Preview of Azure Spring Apps Standard Dedicated Plan. This new plan provides a fully managed, dedicated environment for running Spring applications on Azure, offering customizable compute options, single tenancy, and high availability.
• Building Intelligent Spring Apps with Azure OpenAI. We've integrated Azure OpenAI with Spring to create intelligent and dynamic applications. Check out our sample Spring chatbot app that provides Q&A style assistance and responds to natural language questions.
• Azure Spring Apps Product Updates in June. These latest Azure updates offer benefits to customers such as cost-efficiency, accelerated app deployment, and increased scalability and reliability for Spring applications. High availability support and auto-scaling capabilities ensure uninterrupted service and response to demand changes, while enhanced polyglot support and performance improve versatility and operation speed.
• Provision Azure Spring Apps using Terraform. We've provided a guide on how to provision an app on Azure Spring Apps using Terraform. The tutorial uses the Spring PetClinic, a popular sample application, and Azure Cloud Shell for the demonstration.

And we have more planned. We're gearing up to make even more announcements at the conference. We can't wait to share what we've been working on. So, be sure to bookmark the sessions mentioned in this blog and stay tuned.

Take the next step with us

Register for SpringOne 2023: Ready to immerse yourself in the world of Spring and discover the latest advancements in Azure Spring Apps? Join us at SpringOne 2023 to learn, network, and celebrate 20 years of Spring. Register now and secure your spot at the most exciting Spring conference of the year.

Deploy your first Spring App: Can't wait to get started with Spring development? Explore our Azure Spring Apps Enterprise and deploy your first Spring app today. Follow our easy guide and take your first step towards building intelligent and dynamic applications with Spring. Get started here.

Drop by the Microsoft SpringOne Booth (S1) for enjoyable activities, informative talks, fun customer party and the chances to win awesome prizes! We look forward to seeing you at SpringOne 2023 and continuing to support your journey in cloud-native Java development with Azure Spring Apps. Get ready to hit the jackpot in Vegas with us! See you there!