Microsoft's significant open-source platform, .NET 7, was unveiled during this year's .NET Conf. In addition to improved tooling, there are new language releases for C# and F#, along with the introduction of the cross-platform MAUI user interface framework. Moreover, a new version of ASP.NET Core and Blazor has been released for developing web applications on both the server and client sides. Additionally, there's a significant update to the Orleans distributed application development framework, which now aligns with .NET's naming scheme.
Microsoft and the .NET Foundation have effectively transitioned the platform to an annual update schedule, prioritizing features through open development and incorporating community-contributed code. The shift from the Windows-exclusive .NET Framework to .NET Core, and now to a unified .NET release, has provided developers with a single cross-platform development platform. This expansion includes the addition of Linux and macOS support, building upon the efforts of the Mono team. The most significant benefit is the availability of a shared set of fundamental classes, which means you only need to learn them once and can utilize them across any environment where .NET is used.
Building for the cloud and containers
While previous major releases of .NET mainly targeted desktop and mobile applications, this release brings many advancements for cloud and modern enterprise applications. This isn't surprising because the cross-platform support allows code to run seamlessly on both Windows Server and Linux servers. Extensive work has been done at the low-level, including improvements in the runtime and compiler to support the latest Arm instruction sets. These enhancements have resulted in a significant performance boost of up to 45% for Arm-based .NET code compared to previous releases on recent Arm processors.
The future of .NET is clearly focused on being cross-platform and cloud-native. While Windows remains a core part of the platform, it is no longer the sole target. There is now increased emphasis on Blazor for WebAssembly, enabling web applications, and on containers for use with Kubernetes. The availability of a Linux release is advantageous because it allows .NET to seamlessly transition from your development environment to a container without requiring Docker. Instead of having to publish your code separately and then package it in a container, you can directly create a container from your project using a container package. This allows you to easily publish your code as a Linux container image.
One notable advantage of .NET's approach is its container-host independence. Your container can run on any platform that adheres to the relevant standards. .NET offers its own base images, which are available in different versions for ASP.NET Core, self-contained apps, and other applications. These underlying images are based on Debian, so it's important to ensure you target suitable alternatives if necessary. While it may not fully align with the concept of distroless containers, when it comes to delivering ASP.NET Core or stand-alone code, .NET provides the essential components required to run your code efficiently. Currently, you need to specify the host Linux in advance, unless you are using a platform like Ubuntu.
Taking a chisel to Ubuntu
Microsoft has collaborated with Canonical to introduce .NET support for Chiseled Ubuntu Containers. These containers are a recent addition to Ubuntu's container base images, designed to reduce the size by eliminating unnecessary Debian packages, resulting in a smaller attack surface. These containers are specifically intended for single-purpose, idempotent usage, where new images are built for each release. They do not include internal package management or a shell, similar to Microsoft's Nano release of Windows Server.
The inclusion of this functionality in .NET elevates it to a prominent role in the cloud-native ecosystem. It enables you to develop code within containers, seamlessly push it to a repository, and utilize Kubernetes tools like Helm for managing application updates and deployments. By leveraging Azure DevOps or GitHub, you can streamline your workflow when working with Microsoft's Azure Kubernetes tools, such as Azure Container Apps. Additionally, you can benefit from hybrid cloud instances through Azure Arc on Azure Stack HCI.
WebAssembly is becoming increasingly popular as a means of delivering interactive and engaging user experiences on web browsers. Microsoft's ongoing exploration of WebAssembly through Blazor continues in .NET 7, introducing new debugging capabilities. This technology has garnered significant interest from partners, as evidenced by the Uno Platform's latest release, which incorporates enhanced WebAssembly tools specifically designed for .NET 7. These tools include improved threading capabilities, resulting in significantly enhanced WebAssembly performance. However, it's important to note that thread support is still in the experimental stage, as there are ongoing efforts to address low-level API challenges in JavaScript.
.NET as infrastructure
Azure plays a crucial role in driving the advancements made in this release, with .NET tools becoming increasingly valuable to the platform. In Microsoft's own cloud services, costs have been reduced significantly by combining ASP.NET Core's Kestrel web server with the YARP reverse proxy. Microsoft's own cloud services have experienced substantial cost reductions. A notable example is Microsoft Graph, an ASP.NET Core service that efficiently handles over 70 billion requests each day. With the help of recent .NET releases, the service has been able to scale effectively while reducing costs by an impressive 91%. Azure App Service has also embraced Kestrel, resulting in significant performance improvements. In fact, the improvements have been so impactful
that there are plans to potentially decrease the number of front-end servers by up to 50%.
Azure is fully prepared to support .NET 7 from day one across its range of platform-as-a-service tools, such as Azure App Service and Azure Container Apps. This means that any proof-of-concept code or applications developed using the latest previews of .NET 7 can be seamlessly launched and deployed on Azure without any delays or compatibility issues.
In addition, .NET 7 is enhancing its integrated networking tools. With the introduction of HTTP/3 support, you can easily leverage the latest advancements in web performance. It also enables you to move away from intricate REST APIs and adopt simpler gRPC calls. While this may require some API rearchitecting and code refactoring, it has the potential to greatly accelerate distributed applications and microservices.
Including upgrades to components like this in .NET transforms a software upgrade into an infrastructure upgrade. By reducing the burden on cloud infrastructure, operators can utilize .NET to decrease both capital and operational expenses. This becomes particularly significant during uncertain economic periods when cost-saving measures are crucial.
Similar to previous even-number-year releases of .NET, this version will receive standard-term support (STS). Microsoft follows a policy similar to other open source projects, offering six months of support after the next major version is released. Since .NET has an annual update cycle, you can expect a total of 18 months of support if you have the latest patch release installed. The next long-term support (LTS) release will be .NET 8.
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