Developer Support
Advocacy and Innovation
Latest posts
Universal Windows Programming: What is it and how it can help
Mike Finley, Senior Application Development Manager, discusses how Universal Windows Programming can help you develop one application that runs on multiple devices and form factors with Windows 10. More and more devices are now available for the end users to achieve an online and offline mobile experience. Gartner believes that by 2020, 25B connected “things” will be in use. Without a unified approach, building apps for all these devices could lead to multiple code bases, extended development and testing cycles, and slower time to value. It can also increase the effort to maintain a high qua...
Azure AD client certificate rollover
In a recent post from his blog, Premier Developer Consultant Marius Rochon gives us a step-by-step overview of how to use OAuth2 Client Credential flow with an X509 certificate. This Azure AD sample shows how to use OAuth2 Client Credential flow with an X509 certificate for authentication. Here is a procedure I use to periodically rollover the certificates. In order to maintain continuous ability to authenticate a client you will want to define at least two certificates so that as you replace one, the other one is still available for authentication. That way you can modify the list of certificates in Azure AD...
Using Client Certificate Authentication for Web API Hosted in Azure
In a recent post from his blog, Premier Developer Consultant Razi Rais gives us a step-by-step overview of how to add client certificate Authentication for Web Api Hosted in Azure. During recent customer engagement there was a discussion around client certificate [a.k.a tls mutual] authentication and how to use it with asp.net web api that is hosted on azure as a azure api app. Apparently there is an article that covers this topic for web apps hosted in azure but it cannot be used as-is for web api as there are some differences on how to get the certificate inside a web api versus web app. I also notice that ...
US Workshops, Webcasts, and Tech Talks – May 2016 Update
Premier Support for Developers provides access to a wide range of advisory and training options that include most popular developer technologies. Options range from onsite, instructor-led workshops to remote training, and even access to a distinguished team of Developer Consultants for specialized advisory needs. Content frequently includes proven practices established through the support of Microsoft’s largest customers. Teams struggle to keep up with the latest technology trends, so training and knowledge transfer are important investments to build the expertise required for optimal application and infrast...
Maximize code on the Mobile Platform of your choice
In this blog post, Application Development Managers, Derrick Sharpe and Justin Wendlandt, highlight the many options to maximize development productivity across a range of mobile platforms, including Windows 10, Windows Phone, iOS, Android, and more. Contrary to popular belief, the Windows Phone application development landscape is not dead. There are several initiatives and projects underway at Microsoft which will enable enterprise development teams to leverage existing code on the Windows Phone platforms. Last year at Build 2015, we unveiled our Bridges strategy and our commitment to provide developers wi...
Web Test Plug-in for Authentication
In a recent post from his blog, Premier Developer Consultant Monu Bambroo gives us a step-by-step overview of how to add Authentication into your Web Performance and Load Test with Visual Studio. Web and Load testing are an essential part of application life cycle management. Within Visual Studio, we provide a great template to do web and load testing. This template is used to simulate the application traffic using web tests and simulate high load with the load test template. This works very well for web applications, web APIs, and WCF applications. Web Tests work at the HTTP layer and are basically simul...
Tips for Writing PowerShell Scripts to Use in Build and Release Tasks
Premier Developer ALM Consultant Dave Burnison brings us this awesome collection of tips and tricks for using PowerShell in VSTS and TFS. You can now do almost anything in your build and release definitions in VSTS and TFS 2015. One of the most powerful ways to add your specific logic is to use the PowerShell task or the PowerShell on Target Machines task. The documentation that I have found shows you how to use these tasks but, it does not provide many details on how to manage your scripts or write PowerShell scripts that provide feedback to the user via the build and release hubs in Team Web Access. The ...
Passive is good!
Here’s a quick read from Premier Developer consultant Marius Rochon’s blog. In it, Marius gives some great reasons to leverage passive authentication protocols in your applications rather than writing your own code to handle credentials. Some time back I wrote about avoiding handling of credentials (creation/maintenance/verification of user names, passwords, pins, etc.) in your own application code, but rather delegating that functionality to a specialized, external identity provider (IdP; http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mrochon/archive/2014/12/02/should-an-application-handle-user-credentials.aspx). This aversi...
How Microsoft does DevOps
In this blog post, Application Development Manager, Justin Wendlandt, shares a bit about DevOps strategy, why it’s important, and common areas Premier Developer can help your teams. One of the core focuses at every enterprise or technology organization is how to deliver more business value to their sponsors. It may be phrased differently depending on who you ask. Some statements I hear are, “we need to do more with less”, “release features more often” or my favorite, “build software faster”. In today’s cloud-first, mobile-first world technology companies are stuck between features that their b...