.NET Aspire Consulting

• .NET Aspire is a modern, modular framework that simplifies building, orchestrating, and deploying scalable, cloud-native .NET applications with built-in observability and adaptable, customizable architecture.
• Simplified Local Orchestration: Manage multi-project applications effortlessly with a single C# setup that streamlines local development and debugging workflows.
• Pre-Built NuGet Integrations: Seamlessly connect to Redis, Postgres, Service Bus, and other popular services through ready-made, easy-to-use NuGet packages.
• Built-In Observability Tools: Gain instant insights with integrated OpenTelemetry metrics, logging, tracing, and health endpoints for comprehensive monitoring.
• Robust Deployment Publishers: Support Docker, Kubernetes, and Azure deployment targets out of the box for seamless CI/CD and cloud-native operations.
• Awarded experts: Cazton team comprises experts that have been awarded the Microsoft Regional Director and Most Valuable Professional awards. Our experts happen to be Azure insiders, ASP.NET advisors, Azure Cosmos DB insiders and Docker insiders.
• Top clients: At Cazton, we help Fortune 500, large, mid-size and startup companies with web and app development, deployment, consulting, recruiting services and hands-on training services. Our clients include Microsoft, Broadcom, Thomson Reuters, Bank of America, Macquarie, Dell and more.

Modern applications are no longer single monoliths. They often consist of multiple interconnected services - APIs, background jobs, databases, caches, messaging systems, and third-party tools - deployed across cloud, on-premises, or container environments. Managing this complexity during development often involves juggling scripts, YAML files, and manual configurations, which slows teams down before writing any business logic. .NET Aspire simplifies this by providing a friendly, opinionated stack that lets teams configure and orchestrate all these moving parts using familiar C# code, reducing friction and enabling better collaboration across roles.

.NET Aspire offers a developer-first way to build cloud-ready, distributed applications with simplicity and consistency. It unifies orchestration, health checks, telemetry, and service discovery into a single, code-based setup using familiar C# and NuGet packages. This means developers get a consistent local environment with everything they need out of the box, while managers and architects benefit from faster proof-of-concepts, easier onboarding, and greater confidence that development, testing, and production environments stay in sync - all without complex infrastructure changes or vendor lock-in.

What is .NET Aspire?

.NET Aspire is Microsoft's opinionated, cloud-native stack that streamlines development of distributed applications using .NET. It provides a curated set of tools, templates, and libraries designed to make the local development experience resemble real-world production environments - without the complexity of setting up containers, YAML files, or separate monitoring stacks.

It uses a central "AppHost" project to wire multiple services - APIs, databases, caches, message queues, etc. - into a cohesive application system. Aspire also includes built-in support for observability (like logging, metrics, and tracing), health checks, resource discovery, and dashboarding. It's available as part of .NET 8 and newer and designed to scale from proof-of-concepts to production-level apps.

Why Do We Need .NET Aspire?

Without Aspire, teams spend valuable time setting up local environments, orchestrating dependencies manually, and troubleshooting integration issues before any business logic gets written. This often leads to inconsistent setups between development and production, slowing down innovation and introducing bugs that are hard to track.

.NET Aspire eliminates this friction by standardizing how distributed .NET apps are structured and run in development. It gives teams a pre-configured, observable, scalable foundation to work from - so they can focus on building features, not infrastructure. For companies embracing microservices, cloud adoption, or AI-driven applications, Aspire accelerates delivery while maintaining stability and maintainability.

Features of .NET Aspire

• Dev‑time orchestration via C# AppHost: At the heart of .NET Aspire is its unique C#-based AppHost project, which acts as the central hub for orchestrating your entire application at development time. Instead of managing multiple terminal windows or Docker Compose files, you can define all your services, dependencies, and environments in one place using strongly typed C# APIs. This dramatically simplifies local setup for microservices and multi-tier systems, making it easier for developers and architects to collaborate and evolve the architecture together.
• Rich integrations through NuGet: Aspire comes bundled with first-class integrations for commonly used services like Redis, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Service Bus, and RabbitMQ. These integrations are available as NuGet packages and can be wired up in seconds with one-line calls like builder.AddRedis("cache"). Behind the scenes, Aspire configures connectivity, environment variables, health checks, and OpenTelemetry support, reducing boilerplate and ensuring consistency across environments.
• Starter templates and CLI tooling: Getting started with Aspire is incredibly fast thanks to built-in templates for AppHost, Web projects, worker services, and even pre-configured observability dashboards. These templates are accessible from the dotnet CLI or within Visual Studio and include everything needed to scaffold an end-to-end solution. Whether you're creating a prototype or creating a production-grade app, Aspire gives your team a consistent and modern starting point that enforces best practices from day one.
• Live developer dashboard: Aspire automatically launches a live web-based dashboard as soon as your AppHost starts. This dashboard offers real-time insights into running services, their logs, metrics, health status, configuration, and dependencies. Developers can easily identify failing services, review recent logs, and trace end-to-end request paths - all without digging through terminals or log aggregators. It shortens feedback loops and makes debugging distributed apps a smoother experience.
• Automatic observability (OpenTelemetry): Observability is no longer an afterthought. Aspire’s AddServiceDefaults() method wires logging, distributed tracing, and metrics collection through OpenTelemetry by default. This means every HTTP or gRPC request, every database query, and every background job execution gets tracked with structured data that works out of the box with tools like Grafana, Azure Monitor, or Prometheus. It dramatically reduces the effort required to build apps that are production-ready from a monitoring standpoint.
• Health checks baked in: Every service and dependency added through Aspire gets automatic health checking. Whether it’s a SQL database, a Redis cache, or a background worker, Aspire exposes /health endpoints and status indicators in the dashboard. This not only improves your ability to spot failures locally but also makes it easier to configure readiness and liveness probes for staging and production environments without writing additional code.
• Flexible resource sourcing: Aspire resources can be local (like a Redis container), remote (like a Azure SQL database), or mocked for test scenarios. You can define all your resources in one place and use them consistently across environments, swapping them out with configuration settings. This flexibility allows teams to prototype using containers locally while easily transitioning to cloud-hosted services for integration and deployment without rewriting orchestration logic.
• Publishers for deployment: When you're ready to move beyond local development, Aspire provides a publisher framework that supports outputting Docker Compose files, Kubernetes manifests, and Azure Container App configurations. These publishers take your AppHost setup and translate it into deployment-ready infrastructure definitions. It’s perfect for setting up CI/CD pipelines and reducing drift between development and production environments.
• Extensibility & WebAssembly support: Aspire is designed to be modular and extensible. For example, through community-backed plugins like Fermyon.Aspire.Spin, you can integrate Spin-based WebAssembly components directly into your Aspire-hosted applications. This opens the door to hybrid applications that combine .NET services with lightweight, high-performance Wasm modules. Aspire’s flexibility ensures it can evolve with emerging technologies without requiring deep rewrites or vendor-specific configurations.
• Interop with Dapr & cloud‑native tools: Aspire isn’t trying to replace full-fledged orchestrators like Kubernetes or Dapr. Instead, it complements them by solving the inner-loop developer experience. You can prototype microservices, event-driven workflows, and observability setups locally, then plug into Dapr sidecars or Kubernetes services for production scenarios. This design philosophy respects the separation between local dev-time tooling and production deployment tooling, giving teams full control and composability.

.NET Aspire and AI

Integrating AI into modern applications involves far more than just calling an API - it requires orchestration across services, observability, infrastructure, and model lifecycle. .NET Aspire accelerates AI development by giving teams a local-first, modular platform to build, test, and scale intelligent systems efficiently.

• Local AI Integration: Aspire lets you wrap AI SDKs or self-hosted models (like ONNX, ML.NET, Llama.cpp, or even Hugging Face models) as resources, emulating cloud-based services in local environments. This allows developers to validate flows without depending on cloud infrastructure during early prototyping.
• Telemetry for AI Pipelines: Aspire automatically captures telemetry - logs, latency, and error metrics - around AI model invocations. This provides visibility into model performance, inference bottlenecks, and failure patterns within the same tracing and diagnostics context as your application.
• Composable AI Workflows: With Aspire's AppHost, you can locally orchestrate multi-service AI scenarios involving frontend apps (e.g., React, Angular, Blazor), inference APIs, caching layers, and message queues. This enables realistic end-to-end validation of AI features in a single developer run.
• AI‑Enhanced Developer UX: Aspire's built-in dashboards provide real-time insights into AI behavior, such as model skew, failed inferences, degraded latency, or pipeline-level issues - making it easier to diagnose and iterate during development.
• Future-Ready with Plugin Architecture: Aspire’s extensibility allows you to register cloud AI services (like Azure OpenAI, AWS Bedrock, or OpenAI API) or edge inferencing runtimes as first-class resources. This ensures smooth transitions from local prototyping to scalable production systems.

These capabilities make .NET Aspire a powerful foundation for AI-driven applications - whether you're embedding intelligent assistants into web apps, enabling real-time vision or voice experiences, or experimenting with autonomous agents. We help teams move from prototype to production with confidence, scalability, and full-stack support.

.NET Aspire is different from .NET framework & runtime

It's important to understand that .NET Aspire is not a new version of the .NET runtime or a replacement for .NET 9. Instead, it is a curated stack built on top of the existing .NET platform (such as .NET 8 or .NET 9). While .NET 9 provides the core runtime, language features, libraries, and performance improvements that power your applications, Aspire focuses on how those applications are composed, orchestrated, and observed - especially when multiple services are involved.

Think of .NET 9 as the engine that powers your application and Aspire as the toolkit that helps you assemble and test the entire vehicle in a consistent, efficient way.

Here's how they differ:

• Purpose: .NET 9 is a general-purpose development platform for building web, mobile, desktop, cloud, and AI apps. Aspire is a cloud-ready, developer-first orchestration layer that simplifies running distributed .NET applications during development.
• Scope: .NET 9 includes the base runtime, compilers, ASP.NET Core, Entity Framework Core, C# 13, and more. Aspire packages these capabilities with templates, health checks, service discovery, and observability into an integrated developer experience.
• Audience: .NET 9 targets any .NET developer building standalone or distributed apps. Aspire is particularly useful for teams working on multi-project, service-based applications that include APIs, databases, messaging systems, and background workers.
• Usage: You write your application code with .NET 9 (or 8) and then use Aspire to wire together those services into a working system. Aspire helps you simulate and manage local environments that mimic production without needing Kubernetes or Docker Compose.
• Deployment Role: .NET 9 apps are deployed directly to the cloud, containers, or servers. Aspire is primarily for local development and CI environments. It prepares your application for deployment but is not a production orchestrator itself.
• Tooling & Templates: .NET 9 brings improvements to SDKs, APIs, and performance. Aspire adds ready-to-use templates, AppHost scaffolding, and live dashboards that are not part of the base .NET 9 SDK.
• Observability and Health: While .NET 9 supports OpenTelemetry and diagnostics, Aspire wires them in automatically. It configures tracing, metrics, structured logging, and health endpoints out of the box, saving developers from doing it manually.
• Integration Philosophy: Aspire takes an opinionated approach to development: it assumes defaults, encourages modularity, and reduces the need for boilerplate configuration. .NET 9, by contrast, offers maximum flexibility with fewer built-in assumptions.

How can Cazton help you with .NET Aspire?

At Cazton, we're more than just advisors - we're your hands-on, results-driven partners who take full responsibility for delivering solutions that align with your vision. Our approach is rooted in execution, ensuring you don't just get expert recommendations, but a fully implemented, high-performing solution tailored to your needs.

Our team includes globally recognized Microsoft Regional Directors and Most Valuable Professionals who bring unparalleled expertise in the Microsoft ecosystem and beyond. Trusted by top-tier clients such as Microsoft, Google, Bank of America, Broadcom, and Dell, we've consistently delivered innovative, scalable solutions that drive measurable success.

What We Deliver

• Custom Solutions Designed for You: Tailored .NET Aspire implementations that align with your business goals, delivering scalable, cloud-native distributed applications optimized for your unique environment.
• End-to-End Implementation: From architecture review and development through deployment and automation, we manage the full lifecycle of your Aspire-based applications so your teams can focus on delivering value.
• Modernization & Migration: Seamlessly migrate legacy .NET or microservices applications to .NET Aspire, improving local orchestration, observability, and deployment without disrupting your operations.
• Infrastructure Audit and Roadmap: Evaluate your current app architecture to identify how Aspire can simplify setup, dev workflows, and cloud or hybrid deployments.
• Proof-of-Concept & Pilot Development: Build sample distributed apps to validate Aspire’s orchestration, telemetry, and pipeline integrations in your environment.
• Template and Service Integration Setup: Deploy starter templates and integrate with key services (Azure SQL, Redis), ensuring consistency with your company’s standards.
• Telemetry and Health Monitoring Enablement: Enable comprehensive logging, tracing, metrics, and health checks, integrated smoothly into your observability stack.
• Pipeline and Deployment Configuration: Configure Aspire’s deployment publishers for Docker, Kubernetes, Azure, or other cloud targets, ensuring CI/CD automation and scalability.
• Cloud & DevOps Excellence: Benefit from automated microservices deployment, multi-cloud and hybrid cloud support, and streamlined CI/CD pipelines for rapid, reliable releases.
• Training and Enablement Workshops: Hands-on sessions to upskill developers, architects, and ops teams in Aspire best practices and long-term adoption strategies.
• Ongoing Support and Mentorship: Expert-led code reviews, architectural consulting, and mentorship to reduce technical debt and maximize the impact of your Aspire investments.

Full-Stack Expertise Across the .NET Ecosystem

At Cazton, we support the entire Microsoft technology stack and beyond, helping teams deliver high-performance solutions across web, mobile, desktop, and hybrid platforms. Our full-stack development services include:

• Backend & APIs: ASP.NET Core, Web API, MVC, gRPC, SignalR, minimal APIs, classic .NET Framework, and all modern .NET versions - from legacy systems to the latest and upcoming releases.
• Frontend Frameworks: React, Angular, Blazor (Server/WebAssembly), Vue, Next.js, TypeScript, JavaScript.
• Mobile & Hybrid Apps: .NET MAUI, Xamarin, React Native, Ionic, Capacitor, Cordova.
• Desktop Applications: Electron, WPF, WinForms, .NET MAUI, Electron.NET.
• DevOps & Cloud-Native: Docker, Kubernetes, Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, Terraform, Helm, AWS, Azure, GCP, Snowflake, CI/CD automation.
• Data & Storage: SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, SQLite, Azure Cosmos DB, MongoDB, Cassandra, Redis, Apache Ignite, Azure AI Search, Elasticsearch, SOLR, Riak
• Cross-Cutting Concerns: Identity and access management (OAuth2, OpenID Connect), role-based security, logging, diagnostics, health checks, OpenTelemetry
• Modern Architecture Patterns: Microservices, event-driven architecture, lambda architecture, domain-driven design (DDD), service mesh, service discovery, pub/sub messaging, message queues (Kafka, RabbitMQ, Azure Service Bus).

AI, ML, and Big Data Integration

We also offer consulting and custom software development services for machine learning, artificial intelligence, big data pipelines, and real-time analytics - allowing you to intelligently scale your Aspire-based apps with predictive insights and adaptive systems.

Built for Teams That Demand Excellence

Whether you're building a new solution or modernizing an existing one, our experts deliver results across the entire software development lifecycle - from architecture and UI/UX to testing, deployment, and long-term support. Our consultants are ready to embed within your team or lead the full project, ensuring that your .NET Aspire implementation supports every layer of your stack, across any platform or cloud.

The Cazton Difference

Our hands-on approach ensures that we do the heavy lifting, taking responsibility for delivery and implementation. We're on the hook for your success - whether it's migrating legacy systems, building high-performance solutions, or optimizing cloud-native applications. With a proven track record of delivering complex projects within tight deadlines, we are here to make your vision a reality.

When you work with Cazton, you're choosing a team that doesn't just consult but collaborates, builds, and delivers solutions designed for your success. Our clients trust us to consistently deliver complex projects within tight deadlines. We have not only saved them millions of dollars but also demonstrated time and again our ability to exceed expectations, providing innovative solutions and unparalleled value. Let us help you turn your challenges into opportunities and your vision into results. Reach out today, and let's make it happen together!