News

Azure Spring Cloud Enterprise Preview Now Open to All

• By David Ramel
• 02/16/2022

The joint VMware/Microsoft Java enterprise offering, Azure Spring Cloud Enterprise, is now open to all in a public preview after a five-month private preview.

Azure Spring Cloud Enterprise advances the Azure Spring Cloud service announced in 2019 as a partnership between Microsoft and Pivotal Software, which was later acquired by VMware. It was designed to help developers creating Spring Boot applications focus on building writing app code -- such as microservices -- rather than pedestrian tasks such as configuring infrastructure.

The Spring Framework provides a comprehensive programming and configuration model for modern Java-based enterprise applications for any kind of deployment platform. Spring Boot speeds up the development of web application and microservices with Spring Framework.

Azure Spring Cloud Enterprise entered a private preview last September, when Microsoft said the fully managed service is optimized to fit enterprise needs for typical use cases like:

• Customers seeking an upgrade from the standard Tier of Azure Spring Cloud
• Customers that are new to Tanzu, all in on Azure and don't have an ops teams
• Customers want an Azure native experience and want to transition their Tanzu Application Service (TAS) workloads

"Azure Spring Cloud Enterprise is a managed service for Spring that is optimized for the needs of enterprise developers," Microsoft said in a Sept. 21, 2021, blog post announcing the private preview. "We have collaborated with VMware to combine the cloud platform expertise of Microsoft with the innovation of the VMware Tanzu portfolio. Azure Spring Cloud Enterprise adds commercial Tanzu components built specifically to address enterprise requirements around configuration, integration, flexibility, and support."

In using the preview, enterprise customers can mix and match various VMware Tanzu components on managed Azure infrastructure, which can be chosen during or after creating an instance, Microsoft said at the time. Some of those components included Tanzu Build Service, Tanzu Application Configuration Service and Tanzu Service Registry.

"Azure Spring Cloud Enterprise includes commercially supported Spring runtime components to help enterprise customers ship faster and unlock Spring's full potential, Microsoft said in a Feb. 16 blog post announcing the open-to-all preview. "We are thankful to the many customers and partners who shared their learnings and helped shaped Enterprise tier, and we are excited to announce that Azure Spring Cloud Enterprise is now available in preview for all customers."

VMware penned its own announcement post, which noted that new functionality in the preview includes API discovery and routing using Spring Cloud Gateway for VMware Tanzu and API portal for VMware Tanzu, which "enables developers and operators to easily manage and discover existing APIs and create controllers for new APIs from within their Azure Spring Cloud Enterprise Tier environment." Also new is advanced and long-term support for Spring, which provides access to Spring experts and releases for critical bug fixes and security issues.

VMware said key features of the offering include:

• Portability and flexibility in workload management: "Seamlessly lift and shift Spring workloads between Azure Spring Cloud, public & private clouds, and on-premises."
• Advanced configuration and integration: "Easily control your build dependencies or configure buildpacks to manage existing build environments and deploy non-Spring workloads in your environment."
• Azure-native experience for Spring: Ensure the security and stability of your Spring application portfolio with 24x7 VMware Spring Runtime support, including extended support after OSS End-of-Life and access to releases for critical bug fixes and security issues."

The Azure Spring Cloud Enterprise Tier item in the Azure Marketplace includes a FAQ for more information, along with links to documentation and guidance.