.NET 5 Consulting

• .NET 5 is the next big release after .NET Core 3.0 (release date: November 2020). It aims at unifying all the existing frameworks and offers one single base class library based framework for different application models.
• .NET 5 has some great features to offer including runtime switches, multiple compilation models, C# 9.0 and F# 5.0 support, Windows ARM64 support, single file application deployment, improved container images, enhancements in Kestrel and much more.
• .NET 5 will continue to be open-source, cross-platform, agile, modular, scalable and provide high performance.
• Our team consists of Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals awarded by Microsoft .NET team.

.NET framework was about a decade old when Node.js was launched. Node.js was created with an async-first vision with focus on efficiency and scalability. However, Node.js when introduced was single-threaded, it was not the best option for computation intensive jobs (1). Our CEO, who is an awarded Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for a decade now, has been working closely with many Microsoft teams, especially the .NET team, to help make frameworks, tools and technologies used by our clients better. The Microsoft .NET team did an incredible job taking the feedback from experts like him and creating .NET Core framework, which is faster than Node.js in many cases and also supports multi-threading. No wonder .NET Core is the most loved web framework per Stack Overflow. Highlights of .NET 5 (previously .NET Core) include:

• .NET Core was created with a performance and scalability-first vision.
• Starting from .NET 5, there will be only one .NET moving forward.
• Microsoft has promised to release a new version of .NET every year in November.
• Microsoft has decided to discontinue using the term Core for future .NET releases.
• .NET 5 is open source.

Over the years, .NET has evolved to become a much bigger ecosystem that enables developers to build cloud-based internet connected applications such as web apps, IoT apps and mobile backends. To date, .NET has been available in many varieties: .NET Core, .NET Framework, Mono, Xamarin and UWP. However moving forward there will be only one .NET with a new version releasing every year. The plan is to expand the capabilities of .NET by taking the best of these existing frameworks and bring one single framework that is modern, open-source and cross-platform.

At Cazton, we help Fortune 500, large and mid-size companies with .NET development, consulting, recruiting services and hands-on training services. Our team includes Microsoft Regional Directors, Microsoft awarded Most Valuable Professionals, Azure Insiders, Docker Insiders, ASP.NET Insiders, Web API Advisors, Cosmos DB Insiders as well as experts in other Microsoft and open-source technologies. We highly recommend reading our success story published by Microsoft. The success story is about scaling our client’s eCommerce applications (web, mobile apps, etc.) to more than a billion hits a day with high performance in an extremely cost efficient manner. Recently our CEO was quoted in Microsoft’s AI blog on the capabilities of .NET.

Types of Frameworks

Before we learn about .NET 5, let’s take a quick look at the existing frameworks.

.NET Framework: Microsoft released the .NET Framework in 2002 and over a period of almost two decades, it has become one of the most mature and robust software development frameworks in the industry. .NET uses Nuget, which is a package manager that facilitates reusability of standard code among millions of .NET developers worldwide. It provides a rich set of tools, libraries and APIs for developing different types of applications and solutions for the enterprise, web, mobile, cloud, desktop, gaming, IoT, mixed reality and more. Learn more about .NET Framework and our services.

.NET Core: Microsoft released the first version of .NET Core in June 2016. .NET Core is an open-source, cloud-enabled, cross-platform software development framework, which is a complete rewrite of the existing .NET Framework. It focuses on agile and modular application development through its deep integration with NuGet packages. It enables faster and easier development through its command line tools and flexible deployment strategies. It also helps you build cloud-based internet connected applications such as Web apps, IoT apps, and mobile back ends. ASP.NET Core which is a Web framework came with .NET Core. It is a much leaner version of the ASP.NET Framework that enables developers to create modular next-generation cloud-friendly web applications. Learn more about .NET Core and our services.

In addition to .NET Core and .NET Framework, there are other frameworks like Xamarin which is a cross-platform mobile application development framework. It enables developers to create applications targeting iOS, Windows and Android using C#. And then there is Universal Windows Platform (UWP) which is a unified platform for developing applications for PC, tablet, phone, Xbox, HoloLens and Surface Hub.

Microsoft introduced .NET Standard libraries, which aimed to unite all .NET implementations and avoid future fragmentation. It enabled developers to create portable libraries that can be used across all frameworks (ex: .NET Framework, .NET Core, Mono, Unity, Xamarin, UWP, Windows, Windows Phone). But that still meant having to think about which .NET runtime to use: Core, Xamarin or Framework?

Introducing .NET 5 aims to unify all the existing frameworks into one.

What is .NET 5?

.NET 5 is the next big release after .NET Core 3.0 and it is scheduled to be released in November 2020. The plan is to expand the capabilities of .NET by taking the best of .NET Core, .NET Framework, Xamarin and Mono and create one single framework that is modern, open-source and cross-platform. You will see a convergence of their base class libraries (BCLs) and software development kits (SDKs) providing one single development platform. By default, CoreCLR will be the runtime for most application workloads, however for certain workloads developers will also get the option to switch the runtime. .NET 5 will continue to be open-source, cross-platform, agile, modular, scalable, provide high performance and support platform specific features like Windows Forms, WPF. We can expect .Net 5 to offer high performance APIs, better desktop development capabilities, runtime capabilities, language features and much more.

.NET Core is the future of .NET and it will be succeeded by .NET 5. With regards to .NET Framework, v4.8 will be its last major release. You can expect security, reliability, and bug-fix updates to be available for the next few years, but no major features will be added in the .NET Framework. Eventually .NET Framework will be considered as legacy. If you have a Web Forms application, you can replace it with Razor Pages or Blazor and if you have a WCF service, you can replace it with gRPC. If you are planning to migrate your legacy applications to .NET 5, scroll down to the Migrating to .NET 5 section to learn more about what our experts can do for you.

.NET 5 Features:

• Runtime Switches: .NET 5 will offer a unified implementation of base class libraries, but also a choice to opt any one of the two different runtime environments: CoreCLR and Mono. CoreCLR has been the runtime environment for .NET Core and used for Windows desktop, IoT, machine learning and cloud-based applications. Mono has been the cross-platform .NET implementation for mobile application development. Both these runtimes have been tuned for their respective workloads.
• Compilation Models: Over the years, JIT (Just-in-Time) compilation has been the preferred choice for compiling long-running cloud and client applications since it provides enhanced performance. AoT (Ahead-of-Time) compilation offers a smaller footprint, fast startup and utilizes less memory which makes it a great choice for mobile and WebAssembly based applications. CoreCLR supports JIT compilation and Mono supports AOT compilation. Since .NET 5 will offer both runtimes, we will have both AoT(Ahead-of-Time) and JIT (Just-in-Time) compilation models for different workloads.
• C# 9.0 and F# 5.0 Support: C# is one of the top-rated programming languages in the industry and Microsoft is going to offer support to C# 9.0 and F# 5.0 in .NET 5. This means applications developed using .NET 5 can leverage the new features and capabilities of C# 9.0 and F# 5.0.
• Windows ARM64 Support: Typically, Windows 10 ran on the x86 and x64 processors, but now it also runs on ARM64 based processors. .NET Core 3.0 provided support for Windows ARM32 and Linux ARM32 and ARM64. But running those applications on Windows ARM64 required x86 emulation. However, with .NET 5.0 we can create Web and UI applications natively on Windows ARM64 without the need of an emulator thus leveraging the performance benefits of ARM64 processors. The .NET team has been working closely with the PowerShell team to enable PowerShell 7.1 (which is built using .NET 5.0) on Windows ARM64 machines.
• New Target Framework Moniker (TFM): A target framework moniker specifies which framework the application or the class library currently targets to. Before .NET 5 we had different TFMs for different frameworks, for example: net48 targeted .NET Framework 4.8, netcoreapp3.1 targeted .NET Core 3.1 and netstandard2.1 targeted .NET Standard 2.1. With .NET 5, we will be using dotted version numbers in the TFM i.e. net5.0. Plus, .NET Core and .NET Standard will be merged which means that we can create a single class library targeting .NET 5.0 and it will work seamlessly with any cross-platform .NET 5 application. If we wish to create a target specific application using WPF or WinForms, we can then use the OS-specific TFM (for example: net5.0-windows)
• Single File Application: This feature focuses on publishing and distributing .NET 5 apps as a single executable and is expected to be refined over multiple releases. This feature will be supported on x64 for .NET 5.0 on Windows and Linux and in future it will be supported for ARM 32/64 apps. The single file distribution will be supported for both runtime-dependent and self-contained publish environments and will offer similar experience for Windows and Linux.

ASP.NET 5

ASP.NET Core is a Web framework that came with .NET Core. It is a much leaner version of the ASP.NET Framework that enables developers to create modular next-generation cloud-friendly web applications. ASP.NET 5 is the next big release for this Web framework and you can expect the following feature enhancements:

• Improvements in Container Images: Microservices, containerization and DevOps have been the trend in the industry for quite a few years now. With this new release we can expect implementation of new container APIs and reduced container image size in a multi-stage build scenario. We can also expect great improvements being made for container orchestration and its related environment. For instance, out of the box support for OpenTelemetry will be added, which will enable us to capture distributed traces and metrics from our applications. Tye which is a developer tool will provide much better experience of developing and deploying microservices to a container orchestrator like Kubernetes.
• Improvements in Kestrel: HTTP/2 is a great improvement to the existing HTTP protocol. Kestrel will now support HPACK which provides static and dynamic compression of HTTP/2 response headers. This will improve the performance of HTTP/2 and help save bandwidth and reduce latency. Another improvement we will see is the ability to observe changes to configuration passed to KestrelServerOptions. This will enable you to make changes in the endpoint configuration without requiring you to restart your application.
• SignalR Hub filters: If you are building an application that uses SignalR then this feature can be a nice enhancement. Hub filters allow us to run code before and after the hub method is executed. The benefit of having a hub filter is that it can be used for logging, error handling and argument validation. These filters can be configured easily per hub type or globally for all hubs.
• Other Improvements: Other improvements include extension methods, which will allow us to read and write JSON data from HttpRequest and HttpResponse easily. Blazor WebAssembly, which was released with .NET Core 3.1.3, will have a template included in the .NET 5 SDK. This will enable us to create Blazor Wasm projects using a simple command.

Deployment Services

Deploying a software application requires proper planning, experience and expertise in different software tools and technologies. As technology keeps changing, the deployment team should be flexible enough to accept changes and embrace best practices. Security and scalability factors should be given the highest priority during deployment. A lack of prior planning and experience is many times responsible for failed or delayed deployments.

Our team of experts embrace all security and deployment best practices and have years of experience deploying applications with custom scalability requirements in different environments. Cazton was featured on Microsoft.com as a microservices success story involving one of Norway's biggest eCommerce companies, Elkjøp. We can help you with the following deployment models at cost-effective rates.

Azure: We have team members that work closely with Microsoft product teams including Azure, Cosmos DB, .NET, ASP.NET and many others. Our experts can leverage the full capabilities of the Azure platform and help you deploy your .NET applications on Azure Service Fabrics, Azure Stack, Virtual Machines, Azure App Service and Containers - Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).

Google Cloud Platform (GCP): Our team of experts also include Google Developer Experts who have years of experience working on the Google Cloud Platform. We provide secure and robust deployment solutions for your applications. We can help you deploy your applications on Google’s container service - Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), Compute Engine, App Engine and Cloud Run.

Amazon Web Services (AWS): Our team also includes former IBMers and former Amazon employees. Our experts can help you automate deployment of your .NET applications on Amazon EC2, AWS Fargate, AWS Lambda. We also help you deploy your software on Amazon's container services including Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) and Amazon Elastic Container Service.

On-Premises: We can also help you deploy your .NET applications on your Windows or Linux servers. Our experts can work closely with your team, analyze your requirements and come up with strategies that let you automate deployments and have a seamless deployment experience. Be it a single server or multiple data centers, we can provide the best deployment solutions at affordable rates.

Hybrid (On-Premises and Cloud): We also offer hybrid cloud deployments where our team of experts work closely with you and analyze your private and public workloads and offer a robust and secure deployment solution.

Microservices: Microservices, containerization and DevOps has been the trend in the industry for quite a few years now. At Cazton, we help clients not only with understanding the benefits of Microservices, but also with the right way of implementing it.

Since we are a technology agnostic company, we focus on providing the best value to the client and recommend the best tech stacks for you. Other the above mentioned cloud service providers, we have worked extensively with other services and technologies including Pivotal Cloud Foundry, Service Meshes in Istios, Openshift, Terraform and many others. Please reach out to us for any deployment related issues or service requirements.

Migrating to .NET 5

As mentioned earlier, there will be only one .NET moving forward. The existing .NET Framework 4.8 will continue to receive security, reliability, and bug-fix updates for a few more years but migration is just a matter of time. Migrating a legacy application to target a new framework can be tough. A lot of metrics need to be taken into consideration. A successful migration requires:

• An in-depth understanding of .NET 5.
• Expertise in migrations.
• A deep understanding of the actual cost of migrations, future development and maintenance.

Typical mistakes during migration:

• Migrating and continuing to develop with the same patterns and practices as the legacy framework.
• Not taking advantage of reduced licensing and maintenance costs.
• Not being aware of or considering different industry standard architectures. A deep understanding is highly essential.

There are times when companies migrate laterally and end up losing all the major benefits of an upgraded framework. On the other hand, companies move to a completely different architecture without realizing that the architecture may not fit their needs. One good example is Microservices based architecture. It works great for certain business needs and ends up being an overkill for others. Nevertheless, this is where we can help. We believe that a good consultant pays for itself.

At Cazton, our experts have helped many clients migrate their existing legacy applications at a very cost-effective rate. We specialize in making your legacy stack modern with the least amount of effort. As we help you migrate your applications, we can also help you with the actual implementation, design, architecture and security best practices. We provide different case studies and comparative reports before we suggest technologies that will be the best for you.

Our team is very flexible, especially on brown field projects where the tech stack is already determined and there is not much room to make major changes. They are highly adept to work in all major business domains including financial, tech, airlines, manufacturing, health care, insurance, fintech. Contact us today to learn more about what our experts can do for you.

Highlights of our Microsoft Practice:

• Our team has great expertise in building multi-million-dollar enterprise web applications (with billions in revenue per year) for our Fortune 500 clients.
• We have expertise in many different domains: healthcare, insurance, finance, tech, entertainment, retail, energy, just to name a few.
• We have been fortunate to work directly with Microsoft product teams for almost a decade.
• Our team includes Microsoft awarded Most Valuable Professionals, Azure Insiders, Docker Insiders, ASP.NET Insiders, Web API Advisors, Cosmos DB Insiders as well as experts in other Microsoft as well as open-source technologies.
• We help our clients with:
  • Software Development
  • DevOps and Automation
  • Consulting and Mentoring
  • Training
  • Recruiting

Cazton Success Stories

At Cazton, in creating software we make sure that we give due importance to software metrics like scalability, maintainability, plug-in architectures, right abstractions, best principles, relevant design patterns, right methodology, etc. We have learned a lot from our experiences to create solutions that are extremely cost-effective, futurist, scales out seamlessly and also prevents a degraded user experience. Our team has been fortunate to provide successful architecture and design strategies for applications and organizations that have different scalability needs as well as budgetary constraints.

• Our team helped a client in the healthcare industry that had about 15 standalone apps and few different databases. Since they were different standalone applications, user data were stored in separate databases. For displaying just one piece of information, they would need to query all these databases which created a lot of performance issues. The client also had to deal with data duplication issues. Our experts went in and provided a solution that was robust, secured and scalable. You can learn more about it here.
• A Fortune 500 financial client approached Cazton to help improve the performance of its web based applications. During our analysis, our principal consultants found major architectural mistakes including using an RDBMS for all sorts of data, use of slower coding algorithms both on the web as well as the API and lack of a cohesive performance strategy. Following the assessment, Cazton helped the client team by augmenting a Sr. Architect with a team of consultants. The team added .NET Core along with a NoSQL database like MongoDB for improved performance and scalability where it was the best fit.
• The Cazton team helped a logistics company scale out their web based application. The move involved microservices based development using Docker and Kubernetes. The company was transformed from a solution that was based on legacy technologies for more than 15 years old and were upgraded to the latest technologies. The solution provided by our experts helped the client seamlessly scale their application and have an exceptional improvement in performance.

Most technologies are good, but with the frequent changes in operating systems, platforms and frameworks as well as browsers, frameworks have a lot of keep up with these days. Developers have a lot to keep up with. They can’t specialize and be experts in every technology they work on. With an expert-led team like ours, we bring the benefit of our network to you. We save our clients a serious amount of effort on tasks they shouldn’t be doing by providing them a streamlined strategy and updating it as and when we get more information. We work with Fortune 500, large and mid-size corporations and we learn what works and what doesn’t work and incorporate that in our feedback to our clients to make sure their projects are successful.

How can Cazton help you with .NET 5 Consulting?

At Cazton, we help Fortune 500, large and mid-size companies with .NET development, consulting, recruiting services and hands-on training services. Our team includes Microsoft Regional Directors, Microsoft awarded Most Valuable Professionals, Azure Insiders, Docker Insiders, ASP.NET Insiders, Web API Advisors, Cosmos DB Insiders as well as experts in other Microsoft and notable open-source technologies. We have significant experience in Microsoft technology stack, and our expertise can enhance your project’s performance and improve its efficiency. We believe in customising each solution to tailor to the exact needs of the client. We can provide you the following services:

• .NET 5 Consulting.
• Custom .NET 5 application development, deployment and augmentation with cloud support.
• Customized .NET 5 Training.
• Migrate your existing .NET Framework applications to .NET 5.
• Migrate your existing .NET Core applications to .NET 5.
• Optimize performance of your existing .NET 5 application.
• Consult you with design and architectural best practices.
• Consult you with security best practices.
• Deploy you .NET applications to cloud, hybrid cloud or on-premises.
• Build CI/CD pipeline and automate your deployment process.
• Containerize your .NET application.
• Perform code reviews.
• Custom development, consulting and training services for Web, mobile, desktop and hybrid applications, gRPC, Apis, SignalR, front-end and back-end solutions, big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Our clients trust us to deliver complicated projects within a short delivery time frame. We have saved our clients millions of dollars and have proven multiple times that we can be more economical than even offshore options. We can provide our experts with flexible engagements at a very cost-effective rate.

Note:

1. It was only after worker threads were introduced in 2018 that Node.js was able to take advantage of multithreading offered by the operating system. This module was released in Node.js v10.5.0 and it has been stable since Node.js v12 LTS.