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With everything Microsoft releases, it’s a “mobile first, cloud first” mantra which accompanies it. This is no different; the tech giant has announced the launch of the Azure App Service, a cloud service which enables developers to built web and mobile apps for any platform and any device.
The service brings together the capabilities from Azure Websites, Azure Mobile Services and Azure BizTalk Services. Microsoft aims to provide an integrated solution that streamlines development while enabling easy integration with on-premise and SaaS systems and quickly automate business processes.
Azure App Service offers the chance to develop web apps, enabling users to host any website, web app and API in the cloud, mobile apps, which offers a mobile application development platform, logic apps, which can integrate the likes of Salesforce, Dropbox and Office 365 to Azure PaaS services, and API apps, whereby developers can take a rich library of existing on-premise and cloud APIs.
Bill Staples, corporate vice president for app platform at Microsoft Azure, wrote in a company blog post: “In a mobile first, cloud first world, companies need to ensure their customers, partners and employees are able to seamlessly connect with and consume data across anywhere and on any device.”
He added: “As a developer, you need to build applications that support multiple platforms, can integrate with on-premises information systems and cloud-based services as well as automatically scale globally as your business and audience grow. That’s why today, I’m excited to announce Azure App Service.”
The aim is to provide a seamless, comprehensive selection of languages and operating systems, from .NET, to Java, NodeJS and Python among others, and for Android, iOS and Windows Phone, all under the banner of Microsoft’s cloud. Pricing will remain at the same per-minute billing used on Azure Websites.
Azure has been a particularly popular area for the tech giant to iterate from in recent weeks, with Microsoft unveiling an Azure Internet of Things suite as well as a partnership with Cisco for its ACI architecture.
You can find out more about Azure App Service here.