Angular 14 features

Angular cutoff in September 2021, Angular 14 has not been released. However, I can provide you with an overview of the new features introduced in Angular 12 and Angular 13, which were the latest versions available at that time. Please note that the features mentioned here may not be applicable to Angular 14 or any future versions beyond my knowledge cutoff date.

Angular 12 introduced the following key features and improvements:

1. Angular Language Service Improvements: The Angular Language Service received several enhancements, including improved performance, faster completions, and better support for template type checking.

2. Webpack 5 Support: Angular 12 added support for Webpack 5, which brings performance improvements, enhanced bundle analysis, and advanced tree-shaking capabilities.

3. ESLint Support: The Angular CLI added support for ESLint as an alternative to TSLint for linting and code quality checks.

4. Automatic Font Inlining: Angular 12 introduced automatic font inlining, allowing fonts to be automatically included in CSS files to improve performance.

5. Improved Hot Module Replacement (HMR): The HMR feature, used during development for faster code updates, was enhanced to provide a smoother development experience.

6. Updated TypeScript Version: Angular 12 updated its default TypeScript version to TypeScript 4.2.

Angular 13, which was released after Angular 12, focused on bug fixes, performance improvements, and general maintenance rather than introducing significant new features.

It's important to stay updated with the official Angular documentation and releases to get the most accurate and up-to-date information on the new features and improvements introduced in Angular 14 or any future versions beyond my knowledge cutoff.

Migrating a .NET application to Azure

 Migrating a .NET application to Azure involves several steps to ensure a smooth transition. Here's a general outline of the migration process:

1. Assess your application: Start by evaluating your existing .NET application to understand its architecture, dependencies, and resource requirements. Identify any potential challenges or modifications needed for the migration.

2. Azure Account Setup: Create an Azure account if you don't have one already. Set up subscriptions, resource groups, and other necessary configurations.

3. Select Azure Services: Determine the Azure services that align with your application requirements. This may include Azure App Service, Azure Virtual Machines, Azure Container Instances, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Azure Functions, Azure SQL Database, Azure Storage, and more. Choose the services that best fit your application's needs.

4. Lift-and-Shift or Re-architecture: Decide whether you want to perform a lift-and-shift migration, where you move your application to Azure with minimal changes, or if you prefer to re-architect your application to take advantage of Azure-specific features and capabilities. The latter option may provide greater scalability, resilience, and cost optimization.

5. Create Azure Resources: Set up the necessary Azure resources such as virtual machines, databases, storage accounts, networking configurations, and any other services required by your application. Ensure proper configuration, security, and connectivity.

6. Migrate Data: If your application relies on databases or data storage, migrate your data to Azure. This can involve transferring databases, files, or other relevant data to Azure SQL Database, Azure Storage, or other appropriate Azure services. Ensure data integrity and compatibility during the migration process.

7. Code Migration: Migrate your .NET application code to Azure. This may involve setting up source control, deploying the application to Azure App Service, configuring containers, or deploying to Azure Functions, depending on your chosen deployment model.

8. Network Configuration: Set up networking and connectivity between your application and Azure services. This can include configuring virtual networks, subnets, security groups, and establishing connections between on-premises resources and Azure using VPN or ExpressRoute.

9. Application Testing: Perform thorough testing of your migrated application to ensure it functions correctly in the Azure environment. Test functionality, performance, scalability, and any integration points.

10. Monitoring and Management: Configure monitoring and management tools such as Azure Monitor, Azure Application Insights, or third-party monitoring solutions to gain insights into your application's performance, health, and usage patterns.

11. Security and Compliance: Implement necessary security measures, such as identity and access management, encryption, firewalls, and compliance requirements based on your application's needs and industry regulations.

12. Go Live and Optimization: Once you have completed testing and verification, plan and execute the cutover to the Azure environment. Monitor and optimize your application for performance, cost-efficiency, and scalability in Azure.

Remember that the specific steps and considerations may vary based on the complexity of your .NET application and the chosen Azure services. It's important to thoroughly plan, test, and monitor throughout the migration process to ensure a successful transition to Azure.

GraphQL in.NET

 GraphQL is a query language for APIs that enables clients to request and retrieve only the data they need, allowing for more efficient and flexible data fetching. In the .NET ecosystem, there are several libraries and frameworks available to implement GraphQL servers and clients. Here are some popular options for working with GraphQL in .NET:

1. Hot Chocolate: Hot Chocolate is a GraphQL server implementation for .NET. It provides a high-performance, customizable, and feature-rich GraphQL server. It supports schema-first and code-first approaches for defining your GraphQL schema and provides extensive tooling and middleware support.

2. GraphQL.NET: GraphQL.NET is a popular GraphQL library for .NET. It allows you to build GraphQL servers using a code-first approach, where you define your GraphQL schema using C# classes and attributes. It supports a wide range of features, including schema stitching, batching, and subscription support.

3. StrawberryShake: StrawberryShake is a GraphQL client library for .NET. It provides a strongly-typed API for executing GraphQL queries against a server. It generates C# classes for your GraphQL schema, allowing for type safety and compile-time validation of queries and responses.

4. GraphQL.Client: GraphQL.Client is a lightweight GraphQL client library for .NET. It allows you to send GraphQL queries and mutations to a GraphQL server and retrieve the responses. It provides a simple and easy-to-use API for executing GraphQL requests.

5. Entity Framework Core with GraphQL: If you are using Entity Framework Core as your data access layer in .NET, you can combine it with GraphQL to expose your database entities as GraphQL types. Libraries like Hot Chocolate and GraphQL.NET provide integration with Entity Framework Core, allowing you to build GraphQL APIs directly from your database models.

These are just a few examples of the GraphQL libraries and frameworks available for .NET. Each library has its own features, benefits, and documentation, so you can choose the one that best fits your requirements and preferences. The GraphQL community in the .NET ecosystem is active, and you can find extensive resources, tutorials, and sample projects to help you get started with GraphQL in .NET.

AKS (Azure Kubernetes Service)

 AKS (Azure Kubernetes Service) is a managed container orchestration service provided by Microsoft Azure. It simplifies the deployment, management, and scaling of containerized applications using Kubernetes. AKS abstracts away the underlying infrastructure complexities, allowing developers to focus on deploying and managing their applications.

The architecture of AKS involves several key components working together:

1. Master Node: The master node is responsible for managing the Kubernetes control plane components, such as the API server, scheduler, and controller manager. These components handle tasks like accepting and processing API requests, scheduling containers, and monitoring cluster health.

2. Worker Nodes: Worker nodes are the machines where containers are deployed and run. They form the compute resources of the AKS cluster. Each worker node runs the Kubernetes agent (kubelet), which interacts with the control plane and manages containers on the node.

3. Pods: Pods are the smallest deployable units in Kubernetes. A pod is a logical group of one or more containers that share the same network and storage resources. Pods are scheduled and managed by the Kubernetes scheduler and can be horizontally scaled.

4. Kubernetes API Server: The API server exposes the Kubernetes API, which allows users to interact with the cluster. It receives and processes API requests, such as creating or scaling deployments, services, and pods.

5. etcd: etcd is a distributed key-value store that stores the cluster's configuration data, including information about the cluster's state, such as pod definitions, service configurations, and more. It ensures consistency and fault tolerance in the cluster.

6. Networking: AKS uses a software-defined networking (SDN) solution to enable communication between pods and services within the cluster. It assigns each pod a unique IP address and manages network routing and load balancing.

7. Load Balancer: AKS automatically provisions an Azure Load Balancer to distribute incoming traffic across the pods in a service. The load balancer helps ensure high availability and scalability of applications.

8. Storage: AKS provides integration with Azure storage solutions, such as Azure Disk or Azure Files, to enable persistent storage for applications running in the cluster. This allows data to be preserved even if containers are restarted or rescheduled.

9. Container Registry: AKS integrates with Azure Container Registry (ACR) to store and manage container images. ACR provides a secure and private repository to store and distribute container images used by the AKS cluster.

Overall, AKS architecture combines the power of Kubernetes with the simplicity of a managed service, enabling developers to focus on their applications' logic while benefiting from the scalability, reliability, and flexibility of container orchestration.

What is Blazor

What is Blazor

Blazor is a new framework in ASP.NET Core that allows to create interactive web applications using c# and HTML. 

Blazor comes with two different editions: Blazor Server and Blazor WebAssembly

Image Source :  .NET conference 2019 presentation

Blazor Web Assembly : This allows application to run under client browser using web assemblies. Blazor tries to resolve the browser runtime like Javascript, active x , flash , silverlight , Dart etc. Web Assembly is announced around June 2015. It supports most of web browsers and 

Blazor Server:  This comes with .NET core 3.0, this allows web application using Razor component to be hosted in ASP.Net core servers . This uses web socket to set up connection with client side using Signal R.

Features of Blazor

• In Blazor interactive UI can be build using C# instead of JavaScript.

• Blazor supports mobile browsers as well as all the latest browsers.

• Client side scripting languages add complexity and cost but when you write code in Blazor this share .NET code with both the client and server.

• Blazor helps you to write res-usable web UI components with C# and Razor Blazor is client side web UI framework.

• With Blazor you can call into JavaScript libraries & browser APIs as needed. To achieve this you can use JavaScript interop  which help to use client side JavaScript libraries.

• Blazor take care real time changes in client side and do rendering execution on server and rendering on client side.

• Blazor uses thin client which executes on very low powered devices and older browsers.

• App size doesn't grows as all the code resides on server

Partner tools and controls for Blazor

1. DevExpress

2. Ingragistics

3. Progress Telrik

4. radzen

5. Syncfusion

Ref: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/blazor/?view=aspnetcore-3.1