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Earlier this week, we released 13 Visual Studio partner webinars that build off of some of the major announcement areas of Connect(); 2017 and provide applications of developer tools that, literally, ‘connect’ with the latest and greatest from Azure, SQL Server 2017, and Visual Studio.

Developer Tools for Application Innovation

Scott Guthrie introduced advancements in developer productivity in the cloud, including the GA of Visual Studio App Center, Visual Studio Live Share, and Visual Studio Tools for AI. Telerik by Progress kicks off this series by drilling down into the cross-platform mobile development updates from Connect(); and introducing their app built with Xamarin and Azure’s Computer Vision API. New to our mobile ecosystem, CloudRail walks through the more than 50 APIs they have made available to developers using Xamarin, including Universal APIs targeted at enhancing developer productivity. Aqua discusses how early development choices can help developers eliminate security risks, configuration mistakes, and vulnerabilities in Docker images, and Developer Express walks through object-relational mapping for .NET Core 2.0.

Enterprise-Class DevOps

Brian Harry announced innovations across the development pipeline, including the RTM of Team Foundation Server 2018, a new ‘getting started’ experience with Azure DevOps Projects, and Visual Studio partner GitHub’s announcement of support for GVFS. In this webinar series, Chef details how to use the configuration management features of the Chef Integration extension for Visual Studio Team Services to develop and test a cookbook. 7pace walks through the value of precise time management in conjuncture with Team Foundation Server 2018 to optimize a team’s agile development, and Mobilize.Net illustrates easy migration of legacy client/server apps, using AI and machine learning as an on-ramp to DevOps on Azure.

Tools for Open Source Development

You also saw some killer demos on what the open source community can do with Visual Studio Code (enabling Java debugging and Azure Functions working with Visual Studio Code for Python developers). WhiteSource‘s webinar discusses the difference between detecting and fixing proprietary and open source vulnerabilities and how to automate open source security practices. And through its content delivery network and open edge computing, nuu:bit talks about their integration with Azure CosmosDB.

Developing for the Database

We also demoed how easy it is to create apps for SQL, Windows, .NET and open source frameworks like MySQL, PostgreSQL, Linux, and Java/Node.js using the Microsoft Data Platform. CData‘s webinar drills down into how users can now use powerful analytics applications like Microsoft PowerBI to report directly on live in-memory Redis data structures with their ODBC Drivers. Redgate Software shows how to build database DevOps into your continuous integration and automated release management pipelines. And finally, Syncfusion shows you how to leverage their UI dashboards with Big Data Platforms on Azure.

This is just the beginning. Grab a few hours and a friend or two and dive into the rich content our partners have made available on Channel 9.

Laura Quest, Marketing Manager, Visual Studio Partner Program @LadyQuestawayLaura Quest works across the Visual Studio family of products with partners who build extensions published in the Visual Studio Marketplace and components published in NuGet. She was part of the Xamarin Business Development team and now works within the Cloud Application Development, Data, and AI organization.