In 2019, Microsoft launched Azure Spring Cloud (built in collaboration with VMware) to make it easier for developers to run their Spring Boot applications at cloud scale by removing the burden and related challenges of setting up and managing Spring Cloud infrastructure. Since then, Microsoft and VMware have continued collaborating to expand the core service to support a broader set of Spring workloads. To better capture the expanded capabilities of the platform as a destination for all Spring apps, it was announced today at Microsoft Build that Azure Spring Cloud has been renamed Microsoft Azure Spring Apps.
Azure Spring Apps provides a streamlined experience for developers looking to build and deploy Spring applications on Microsoft Azure, with built-in monitoring, scaling, and integration with the broader Azure ecosystem. Customers like Bosch, Digital Realty, Kroger, Liantis, Morgan Stanley, National Life Group, Raley’s, and Swiss Re have adopted Azure Spring Apps to enable their developers to focus on building software and driving business value. In our conversations with customers, we saw an opportunity to continue collaborating to grow the offering to support their most mission-critical applications at enterprise scale. The addition of an Enterprise tier was announced by Microsoft at SpringOne 2021, and it has since been tested and improved based on feedback from customers and partners who participated in the private and public previews. We are excited to share that it was announced today at Microsoft Build that Azure Spring Apps Enterprise will be generally available in June 2022.
In addition to all the features available in the Standard tier, Azure Spring Apps Enterprise adds support for polyglot applications and includes commercially supported Spring runtime components to help enterprise Spring developers deploy and manage their most mission-critical applications on Microsoft Azure.
So, what makes this useful for enterprises and developers alike?
Flexibility – Azure Spring Apps Enterprise was specifically designed to provide the advanced configurability, flexibility, and support needed to fit enterprise requirements. With technology like VMware Tanzu Build Service and Spring Cloud Gateway under the hood, teams can accelerate how a developer goes from idea to running applications with ready-made, enterprise-conformant templates, easy API discovery, and integrated access to Azure components.
Easily discover APIs with API portal for VMware Tanzu, included in Azure Spring Apps Enterprise
Full management – No ops team? No problem. Whether you don’t have an ops team, don’t want to manage infrastructure, or are simply focused on getting your apps to production fast, all Azure Spring Apps tiers, including Enterprise, run on a fully managed Azure environment (underpinned by Azure Kubernetes Service).
Azure Spring Apps Enterprise reference architecture
Support – It’s built and backed by Microsoft and VMware. Rest easy knowing that your platform and applications are supported through Microsoft support, with a 99.9 percent SLA at general availability. Customers are also entitled to receive VMware Spring Runtime support directly from VMware to help ensure the continuity and security of their Spring applications.
Azure Spring Apps Enterprise customers can access long-term support through VMware Spring Runtime entitlement
Azure Spring Apps Enterprise represents the ongoing collaboration by Microsoft and VMware, and our commitment to enabling organizations to deliver better software to production, continuously. We think this is all pretty great, but don’t take our word for it. Here is what some of our customers are saying:
“FedEx launched a Global Delivery Prediction Platform that dynamically predicts estimated time of arrival on more than 16 million shipments a day. We integrate these machine learning-based insights back into our core systems to optimize our operations and to give our customers greater visibility than ever before. Exposure and consumption of these insights is critical, and we chose Azure Spring Apps as our principal compute for high-volume processing because of its ease of use, scale, and integrations into the Azure ecosystem. Our collaboration with Microsoft and VMware has delivered an amazing service for fast-moving Java teams to deliver impactful solutions for our customers.”
—Tony Kreager, Senior Vice President, Data Engineering & Data Science, FedEx Dataworks
“Azure Spring Apps is at the center of our new API platform and provides us a simple way to get our Spring applications to production quickly and securely. We had been searching for a long time for an off-the-shelf solution that would fit our requirements before Microsoft and VMware finally got together to launch this solution. Azure Spring Apps allows us to concentrate on the business logic of our applications and takes away the complexity of delivering those applications to our customers.”
—Claus Lund, Senior Infrastructure Engineering Lead, National Life Group
“Azure Spring Apps is a critical component of Digital Realty API and Portal offering. Azure Spring Apps managed offering allowed us to rapidly deploy microservice applications and reduce time to market. We have migrated legacy applications to microservices-based architecture in record time. Coupled with the REST APIs that we have developed, we have a truly powerful, resilient, and global platform. We are very excited to see the continued development of the offering and collaboration between Microsoft and VMware and how they benefit our teams and Java developers everywhere.”
—Raj Sriramoju, Director API Engineering, Digital Realty Trust
Get started with Azure Spring Apps Enterprise
Getting started with Azure Spring Apps Enterprise is as easy as navigating to the Azure Marketplace. We also have lots of great documentation, code samples, and demos to help you on your way. Interested in learning more about the offering? Connect with us this week at Microsoft Build, check out the product page, or join us for a webinar on June 9 to get a deep dive into Azure Spring Apps Enterprise and how it makes running Spring apps at cloud scale a breeze.
