First published on CloudBlogs on Jun, 03 2014
Howdy folks,
We've received a lot of requests from those of you who develop in C# for a library to simplifies interacting with our Graph API, something that feels a little more native to .NET. So I am happy to be able to share the news that our new Azure Active Directory Graph Client Library 1.0 is now generally available. This library supports all the capabilities exposed by the Graph API version 2013-11-08 and it is available as a NuGet package.
You can read all about the new library and find links obtain the NuGet package at
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/aadgraphteam/
Why would you need a client library?
Consuming the Azure AD Graph API directly (calling a REST Api using raw web requests) can be bit tedious. And preparing the request for some advanced queries can be a bit challenging. The library provides a simple way to access Graph API, and makes it easier to quickly incorporate Graph API code into your applications, including the handling of common errors. It makes it easier to focus on the important, the core features of your application!
What can I do with the Graph API library?
The library contains definitions for all the Azure AD Graph entities available along with all their properties. All the client library functions are exposed through the Graph Connection class, and is used to Create/Get/List/Update/Delete operations on directory objects such as Users, Groups, Contacts, Tenant Details, Applications, Permissions, Devices. Getting linked objects is fully supported as well, such as retrieving Group Membership, or finding which Groups a user is a member of. The library also simplifies getting/setting of stream objects such as the Users' thumbnail photo, or an Application's logo.
We've updated our Graph Api GitHub sample apps (
https://github.com/azureAdSamples
) to demonstrate how to use the new client library. We are also planning to make the sources for version 1.0 available for everyone, so that the Graph client library functionality can be extended. These sample apps include usage of Microsoft Active Directory Authentication Library (ADAL) and the preview of Microsoft Open Web Interface for .NET (OWIN) – showing authentication and delegation using OpenID Connect and OAuth 2.0.
Very shortly after this post, the Graph team will also post more details about each of the APIs with a complete API reference.
Please read more details about the new library, how to obtain the NuGet package and sample apps at the Graph team's blog:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/aadgraphteam/archive/2014/06/02/azure-active-directory-graph-client-lib...
As always, we'd be excited to receive any feedback or suggestions you have!
Best Regards,
Alex Simons (twitter:
@Alex_A_Simons
)
Director of PM
Active Directory Team
