In the dynamic auditorium of cloud-native technologies, navigating the path to success can feel like orchestrating a symphony without a conductor. But what if there’s a gateway that simplifies this journey? Enter .NET Aspire, a beacon of innovation in the realm of Microsoft technologies. Here’s a story of someone who has worked with Microsoft technologies from the very beginning, illuminating why .NET Aspire is not just a platform but a catalyst for fostering cloud-native triumphs.
Hey there! I’m Piero Viano, and I have over two decades of experience in the IT industry, focusing on Microsoft technologies. Over the years, the complexity has become overwhelming when discussing cloud-native applications, as every component must seamlessly communicate with one another. Juggling all this complexity not only eats up my time but also leaves me with less of it to spare. That’s where .NET Aspire comes in, and I couldn’t be more thrilled about it!
Exactly as Microsoft has accustomed us, the company tries to offer a solution that is simple to use and which promises to greatly simplify complex architectures.
Figure 1: .NET Aspire Positioning
Ready to explore the features that connect the dots?
Firstly, I’ll point out the key aspects that make this platform stand out, offering insights into its capabilities and potential benefits:
Opinionated framework
.NET Aspire represents a preconfigured, cloud-ready stack designed for constructing observable, production-ready, and distributed applications. When we describe it as an “opinionated framework,” we mean that it emphasizes the features most commonly needed by developers, thus offering a curated set of tools that aim to simplify and expedite the development process. Now let’s break down this sentence.
- Orchestration: .NET Aspire provides features for running and connecting multi-project applications and their dependencies for local development environments.
- Components: .NET Aspire components are NuGet packages for commonly used services, such as Redis or Postgres, with standardized interfaces ensuring they connect consistently and seamlessly with your app.
- Tooling: .NET Aspire comes with project templates and tooling experiences for Visual Studio and the dotnet CLI helps you create and interact with .NET Aspire apps.
Simplified Architecture
If you need to make changes to your system, you only need to touch one point, not a hundred – a dramatic simplification. This is made possible by the Aspire architecture illustrated in the image below.
Figure 2: Aspire Architecture
Basically, using ‘nuget’ packages and adding two projects, the magic happens: every microservice is aware of the other microservices configuration using some simple convention.
The following image shows the two added projects: The AppHost and the ServiceDefault; these projects are ‘implementing’ the magic.
Figure 3: Two added projects: The AppHost and the ServiceDefault
As an example, if a port of a microservice changes, you have to modify one single point in that microservice configuration, and every other system will see that modification in a transparent way. Changing the database server or Redis configuration follows the same principle, and environment variables can be configured accordingly.
Single monitoring point
A single monitoring point allows you to view the overall health status, without needing to delve into each microsystem individually, providing you with an overview.
Launching a .NET Aspire application with F5 in Visual Studio or ‘dotnet’ run via command-line, brings you to the developer dashboard. This dashboard serves as an essential tool for debugging distributed applications, presenting a unified view of your services alongside their logs, metrics, and traces.
Figure 4: The dashboard and accessing the various microservices
This Dashboard is not just a window into your cloud-native application, it’s an interactive platform that provides valuable insights into your projects and highlights any errors, allowing for deeper investigation.
Figure 5: Traces and Metrics
We can also see logs across all projects, and even a distributed trace showing a request to the pages. Traces are a critical tool in diagnosing problems in distributed systems.
Figure 6: How logging is visible in the dashboard
One single point of configuration
If you decide to use .NET Aspire, every project defines its own configuration. Glue logic ensures seamless communication between different components, allowing every project to set its configuration, and other parts of the solution will transparently see changes.
Figure 7: The configuration of a microservice
Interconnected Microservices
The biggest problem with microservices is communicating with each other. Aspire simplifies this connection and is a great tool for working in .NET.
Normally, in a microservice architecture, every system works on a certain port, uses its own database, its own caching etc. Normally, problems arise when a service has to change its port. Thanks to the glue logic, these changes are applied smoothly.
Out of the box components
Aspire is out-of-the-box. It features components such as:
- Cloud-agnostic resources available in the Aspire.Hosting NuGet package (available by default in .NET Aspire templates with the AppHost project)
Figure 8: Resources not tied to Microsoft technologies
- Azure specific resources available in the Aspire.Hosting.Azure NuGet package
Figure 9: Resources related to Microsoft Azure
Reality Check
While Microsoft often presents its solutions as magical, the reality is more nuanced. Behind the marketing lies a landscape of complexities and challenges that require real expertise to navigate effectively. Let’s focus on understanding these realities rather than solely relying on the illusions of magic.
Figure 10: A deployed application in Microsoft Azure
While .NET Aspire offers a promising solution for microservices architecture within the .NET framework, its limitations become evident when considering diverse environments. One significant drawback is its exclusive focus on .NET, making integration with Java or other technologies unfeasible. Additionally, the platform’s optimal performance is dependent upon an all-Microsoft ecosystem, showcasing reduced support and functionality outside of this domain. For instance, while Microsoft Azure users benefit from dedicated deployment support, alternative cloud providers are left unsupported, highlighting a reliance on Microsoft infrastructure for seamless operation.
But that said, I’m looking forward to putting Aspire to the test in real-world scenarios to evaluate its alignment with Microsoft’s acclaimed capabilities.
Happy coding!
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Piero Viano
Senior .NET Consultant
