Microsoft Connect(); 2017 kicked off this morning in New York City, and Microsoft wasted no time to get the big announcements rolling. The company shared today how they are supporting the new ways for developers to build for the intelligent cloud and the intelligent edge. Some developers have been pretty impressed with the day’s news, so here’s a look at the biggest announcements from the annual Connect(); event.
Open Source development:
In line with Microsoft’s previous joining of the Linux Foundation and sharing SQL server on Linux, the company today detailed more plans for their commitment to the open source community. Microsoft will be joining the MariaDB foundation, releasing Azure Cosmos DB with Apache Cassandra API, and more. Scott Guthrie, EVP of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise Group, explains:
- We’re excited to be joining the MariaDB community as a platinum member of the MariaDB Foundation. As part of this membership, we’re committed to working closely with the foundation, actively contributing to MariaDB and the MariaDB community. We’re also announcing we’ll be delivering a preview of Azure Database for MariaDB, which will bring the fully managed service capabilities to MariaDB.
- Azure Cosmos DB with Apache Cassandra API Preview: With this preview, developers now get a Cassandra-as-a-service using the Cassandra SDKs and tools they are familiar with using the power of Azure Cosmos DB.
- Azure Databricks is a fast, easy and collaborative Apache Spark-based analytics platform optimized for Azure. Azure Databricks combines the best of Databricks and Azure to help customers accelerate innovation with one-click set up, streamlined workflows and an interactive workspace.
Microsoft will also be partnering with GitHub to bring GVFS, an open source extension to the Git version control system, to over 25 million users.
Productivity and Visual Studio:
Just as how Microsoft is aiming to stay committed to the open source community, Microsoft also wants to help developers be more productive. There are a couple of Visual Studio themed announcements today which are all aimed at assisting and empowering developers in achieving more. Notable among them all is Visual Studio Live Share, and the Visual studio App Center.
- Visual Studio App Center helps developers automate and manage the lifecycle of their iOS, Android, Windows and macOS apps. Developers can connect their repos and within minutes automate their builds, test on real devices in the cloud, distribute apps to beta testers and monitor real-world usage
- Visual Studio Live Share enables true real-time collaboration within both Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code. It lets developers seamlessly and securely share their project with other developers so that they can collaboratively edit and debug in real time together without having to sit in front of the same screen or in the same room.
- Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code will now use the Connected Environment for AKS features, making Kubernetes development a natural for Visual Studio developers. Developers will be able to easily edit and debug cloud native applications running on Kubernetes in the cloud
- Azure DevOps Projects will deliver a guided experience, helping developers easily explore the many Azure platform services available to help build their apps and in the process, configure a full DevOps pipeline powered by Visual Studio Team Services
Finally, Artificial Intelligence is the next big thing for all developers, so Microsoft is empowering developers to harness the power of AI. The company is announcing Visual Studio Tools for AI in preview, which creates AI models with maximum productivity. Microsoft is also making available the preview of Azure IoT Edge, to help developers deploys cloud intelligence to IoT devices via containers.
