Modernize ASP.NET applications to the cloud without code changes using Managed Instance on Azure App Service! Major updates to Aspire support on Linux and more…
Azure App Service introduces a new approach to accelerate application migration and modernization at Microsoft Ignite 2025. Known as Managed Instance on Azure App Service, it enables seamless modernization of classic web apps to the cloud with minimal code changes, especially for apps with custom Windows dependencies. Other major updates include enhanced Aspire support for .NET developers on Azure App Service for Linux, new AI integration features, expanded language/runtime support, and improvements in scaling, networking, and developer experience. The product group is attending in full force, and if you are in San Francisco this week, make sure to catch us at multiple breakout sessions, labs, expert booths, and conversation corners for deep dives and hands-on learning opportunities.
Introducing Managed Instance on Azure App Service
Managed Instance on Azure App Service enters public preview at this year’s Ignite 2025 conference. Building on the success of Windows App Service, Managed Instance opens more opportunities for Windows customers to modernize classic ASP.NET and .NET web applications to managed PaaS!
Managed Instance solves common migration challenges, such as needing to install custom software, using COM/COM+ components, accessing the Windows registry, and calling Windows GDI+ APIs for scenarios such as server-side PDF rendering. With Hyper-V nested virtualization on the now generally available Premium v4 SKU, and a new capability to run your own installation scripts during VM startup, Managed Instance makes it much easier to move both classic ASP.NET and .NET web apps with Windows dependencies to the cloud. Instead of rewriting or changing your code before migration, you just set up configuration and installation scripts for the dependencies your app relies on. You also keep getting automatic updates and maintenance for both .NET and the Windows operating system, thanks to the fully managed nature of App Service. You also have access to tools like IIS Manager, and you can securely access machines directly via RDP.
Related Sessions
You can get more information at Microsoft Ignite 2025 by attending the following sessions and labs delivered by the product group members who are building the feature!
- BRK102: Technical deep dive on Managed Instance on Azure App Service
- Watch in-person, live streaming, or on-demand, Wednesday November 19th at 1:30 PM – 2:15 PM Pacific Standard Time
- Conversation Corner: Additional Q&A with the team immediately after BRK102
- In-person only, Wednesday November 19th at 2:30 PM – 2:45 PM Pacific Standard Time
- Location: The Hub, Microsoft Showcase - near Migrate and Modernize (under Cloud and AI Platforms) - Conversation Corner
- LAB501: Migrate ASP.NET Apps using Managed Instance on Azure App Service
- Session 1 on Wednesday, November 19th at 6:00 PM – 7:45 PM Pacific Standard Time
- Session 2 on Thurday, November 20th at 2:45 PM – 4:00 PM Pacific Standard Time
Getting Started
Managed Instance is currently available in four regions at Ignite 2025, with additional regions coming online in the next few weeks. Try out the public preview of Managed Instance today!
Aspire on Azure App Service
Since its inception a central goal of Azure App Service has been enabling .NET developers to innovate with the latest .NET features at scale in the cloud. At last week’s .NET Conf 2025, App Service announced major updates to Aspire support on Azure App Service for Linux. The platform added deep integration and support for the Aspire developer dashboard. Developers can use the new App Service Aspire dashboard to view logs and metrics for their Aspire applications.
Developers can also view the Aspire project topology and drill into the details and actions available for the individual websites in their Aspire deployment running on App Service.
Related Resources
Watch the on-demand session from .NET Conf 2025 “What's new in Azure App Service for .NET developers” where product team members demonstrate the latest Aspire on Azure App Service for Linux support!
Get started with Aspire examples on GitHub, and stay tuned for additional updates in the next few weeks!
Build Intelligent AI apps on App Service
With the ever-increasing options for building AI agents and intelligent apps, Azure App Service is a great application platform choice for bringing AI to existing applications! Bookmark this AI integration landing page which contains a plethora of examples showing how to incorporate AI capabilities to your web applications.
Over the last few months, the App Service team has also built numerous examples demonstrating Foundry Agent Service used in concert with web applications running on App Service.
The first App Service example uses the recently released Microsoft Agent Framework to demonstrate the basics of integrating a long-running AI agent flow on Foundry Agent Service with a web application on App Service.
A second more in-depth example incorporates multiple agents with Microsoft Agent Framework in a multi-agent workflow orchestration running in Foundry Agent Service. And then a third sample using custom code and Microsoft Agent Framework implements the agent workflow orchestration entirely inside the web application. The second and third examples use different approaches to orchestrating multi-agent workflows, each with their own tradeoffs (see the linked blog posts above for a discussion on architecture considerations), but with the same end result from a scenario perspective.
Since agents frequently need to interact with the “outside world”, both to ingest data for context as well as to effectuate changes based on agentic flows, web and API apps on App Service are also a great choice for providing external context and functionality to these agents. The team published an example e-commerce website demonstrating the basics of how a multi-agent orchestration running on Foundry Agent Service can use back-end web APIs as agent tools with a combination of OpenAPI and Model Context Procotol (MCP). Since MCP is broadly adopted across an array of AI products this also means web apps running on App Service can be plugged into myriad AI systems by adding MCP endpoints.
Related Resources
A summarized list of the AI examples discussed earlier:
- Integrate a long-running AI agent flow on Foundry Agent Service with a web app, using the recently released Microsoft Agent Framework
- Explore a detailed example with a multi-agent workflow orchestration running on Foundry Agent Service
- See an alternative approach where the multi-agent workflow orchestration runs entirely inside the web app using custom code and Microsoft Agent Framework
- Learn how web and API apps on App Service can provide external context and tools for agents
- Discover how to use OpenAPI endpoints as agent tools for AI orchestration
- Understand how Model Context Protocol (MCP) endpoints let web apps connect to various AI systems.
Start out with any of the numerous AI samples and have fun bringing AI agents to your web applications today!
Language and Developer Experience Updates
As we round out the year, developers have a full slate of LTS releases available to choose from across the App Service platform! Both Python 3.14 and Node 24 were just released in the last few weeks on Azure App Service for Linux. And .NET developers now have .NET 10 GA available on both Windows and Linux! The Wordpress offering on Azure App Service for Linux was also recently updated with support for PHP 8.4. An interesting note on all the new LTS releases is that App Service has shifted the underlying OS image dependency for the latest .Net, Python and Node versions from Debian over to Ubuntu.
A host of platform improvements have been rolling out for Python developers including new deployment support with pyproject + uv and Poetry, as well as tweaks to the platform’s bash shell with additional stack version and instance info. Details on these improvements and more are in the recent "What’s New for Python" blog post. Python developers can also check out an ever-expanding set of Python AI samples the team publishes on GitHub including chat using LangChain + FastAPI, image caption generation with Streamlit, and low-light image enhancement with Flask + OpenCV!
The last few months have also been busy with many developer experience enhancements across the App Service platform. The Custom Error Pages feature just entered GA at Ignite with new portal functionality added to optionally “always use” Custom Error pages for certain HTTP error codes.
The “Log Stream” feature for Azure App Service for Linux in the Azure Portal was also recently updated to incorporate common customer feedback. Log streams now have a configurable time window (5 minute to 90 minute look-back), an option to view logs emitted from different worker machines (great for apps running on two or more instances), configurable log levels, and a new option to toggle between application generated logs and lower-level platform logs (useful for tracing things like container startup logs).
Many Linux developers might have noticed there is also a new UX option available for the SCM site (referred to as “Advanced Tools” in the Azure Portal). The new look and feel will soon become the default for all Linux developers. As part of the new SCM site the team added an “AI Playground” for developers to try out small language models (SLMs).
Small Language Model (SLM) support on Azure App Service for Linux relies on the platform’s sidecar support, and a common ask from customers about sidecars is how to integrate them using CI/CD. To address this ask, the team recently authored examples demonstrating building and deploying sidecars using either Azure Pipelines or GitHub Actions.
Also, on the topic of sidecars, Azure App Service for Linux recently added two pre-built Open Telemetry (OTel) sidecars enabling developers to send OTel telemetry data from web apps on Linux to either Azure Monitor (data shows up in Application Insights) or Elastic APM (data is visible in Elastic's Kibana tooling). The team has also published additional details and tips covering configuration details for PHP, Python, Node and .NET.
There's never been a better time to try out the ever-expanding array of language and tooling options on App Service!
Async Scaling, Networking and ASE Updates
Just recently entering public preview is a new asynchronous scaling feature providing error-free repeatability for scale-out as well as scenarios requiring rapid back-to-back serial creation of app service plans. With the new asynchronous scaling feature App Service works in the background to complete the requested resource allocations and converge on the requested quantity of instances.
Support for inbound IPv6 traffic went GA on App Service over the summer. IPv6 outbound support for Windows App Service also entered public preview over the summer. Outbound IPv6 support is currently rolling out for Azure App Service for Linux with public preview expected in Q1 2026.
Also expected later in Q1 2026 is the public preview of custom domains for private endpoints! This is a frequently asked for feature that will enable binding custom domains registered only in a customer’s private DNS zone to web apps configured with private endpoints.
App Service has also kept busy addressing top customer asks for App Service Environment v3 (ASEv3)! The new root certificate feature for ASEv3 went GA in late October. This feature gives developers the ability to add root certificates issued by private or enterprise certificate authorities to the trusted root certificate store of the underlying web workers. Read more about how to use the new API in the root certificate API documentation.
Just last month the ASEv3 team also released a public preview of the new outbound network segmentation feature for web apps running on ASEv3. Network segmentation enables routing outbound traffic from individual applications on an ASEv3 to different subnets, and more specifically to subnets other than the default subnet associated with the ASEv3.
Looking farther out to the first half of 2026, App Service will also be bringing the new hardware used with the recently released Premium v4 SKU over to ASEv3 as well – so stay tuned!
Next Steps
Developers can learn more about Azure App Service at Getting Started with Azure App Service. Stay up to date on new features and innovations on Azure App Service via Azure Updates as well as the Azure App Service (@AzAppService) X feed and App Service team blog. There is always a steady stream of great deep-dive technical articles about App Service as well as the breadth of developer focused Azure services over on the Tech Community Apps on Azure blog as well!
And lastly take a look at Azure Friday, featuring great topics about services capabilities across Azure, including a recent App Service topic discussing App Service integration with Foundry Agent Service!
Ignite 2025 Session Reference
(Note: all times below are listed in Seattle time - Pacific Standard Time)
Product Group team members will be at the Expert Meet-up Booth for Azure App Service!
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday - The Hub, Microsoft Showcase area
Under "Cloud and AI Platforms" --> "Migrate and Modernize"
From legacy to modernizing .NET on Azure faster than ever
https://ignite.microsoft.com/sessions/BRK150
Tuesday, Nov 18th 1:00 PM – 1:45 PM Pacific Standard Time
Moscone West, Level 3, Room 3002
Breakout, Streaming Online and Recorded Session (BRK150)
Using Azure SRE Agent to conquer incident response and reliability
https://ignite.microsoft.com/sessions/THR702
Tuesday, Nov 18th 1:30 PM – 2:00 PM Pacific Standard Time
Moscone South, The Hub, Theater C
Theater, In-Person Only (THR702)
Technical deep dive on Managed Instance on Azure App Service
[Note: Attendees can try out Managed Instance as well in Lab501!]
https://ignite.microsoft.com/sessions/BRK102
Wednesday, Nov 19th 1:30 PM – 2:15 PM Pacific Standard Time
Moscone West, Level 2, Room 2016
Breakout, Streaming Online and Recorded Session (BRK102)
Conversation Corner: Q&A for "Technical deep dive on Managed Instance on Azure App Service"
Wednesday, Nov 19th 2:30 PM – 2:45 PM Pacific Standard Time
The Hub, Microsoft Showcase - near Migrate and Modernize (Cloud and AI Platforms) - Conversation Corner
In Person Only
Apps, agents, and MCP is the AI innovation recipe
https://ignite.microsoft.com/sessions/BRK116
Wednesday, Nov 19th 2:45 PM – 3:30 PM Pacific Standard Time
Moscone West, Level 2, Room 2016
Breakout, Streaming Online and Recorded Session (BRK116)
Migrate ASP.NET Apps using Managed Instance on Azure App Service
[Note: This is the companion Lab to Breakout Session BRK102.]
https://ignite.microsoft.com/sessions/LAB501
Wednesday, Nov 19th 6:00 PM - 7:15 PM Pacific Standard Time
Moscone West, Level 3, Room 3007
Hands on Lab, In-Person Only (LAB501)
Migrate ASP.NET Apps using Managed Instance on Azure App Service
[Note: This is the companion Lab to Breakout Session BRK102.]
https://ignite.microsoft.com/sessions/LAB501-R1
Thursday, Nov 20th 2:45 PM - 4:00 PM Pacific Standard Time
Moscone South, Level 3, Room 301
Hands on Lab, In-Person Only (LAB501-R1)
Microsoft