This workshop teaches .NET Aspire through hands-on development of a multi-service application. You'll leverage a browser-based frontend communicating with .NET backend services and both SQL and NoSQL databases. The project leverages industry-standard OpenTelemetry for distributed tracing and metrics, configures service discovery for inter-service communication, and uses .NET Aspire's dashboard for monitoring and service health during development. You'll work with containerized dependencies, replace manual connection strings with Aspire's integration providers, and add .NET Aspire's features into an existing application. Additionally, attendees will craft deployments to Azure Container Apps and Kubernetes, leveraging IDE tools and GitHub Actions workflows for CI/CD automation. Attendees leave with a GitHub repo with extensive samples and the courseware to continue learning or apply the knowledge in their own projects.

## What You'll Learn

* **Core .NET Aspire Concepts**: Master the dashboard, integrations, observability, and discoverability of Microsoft's opinionated tool for microservices
* **Microservices Architecture**: Design and implement a multi-service application with browser-based frameworks, .NET backend services, and SQL and NoSQL data stores
* **OpenTelemetry Integration**: Configure distributed logging, tracing, and metrics collection across all services
* **Service Discovery & Communication**: Implement service-to-service communication with automatic discovery and resilient HTTP clients
* **Container Orchestration**: Manage containerized applications and their dependencies with .NET Aspire's orchestration capabilities
* **Configuration Management**: Eliminate manual connection string management with .NET Aspire's integration providers
* **Brownfield Integration**: Learn techniques for integrating .NET Aspire into existing applications and modernizing legacy systems
* **Azure Container Apps Deployment**: Deploy your application to Azure using the "well-paved path" for .NET Aspire applications
* **Alternative Deployment Options**: Explore Kubernetes deployment and other container hosting options
* **CI/CD Pipeline Setup**: Configure GitHub Actions workflows optimized for .NET 9 and .NET Aspire applications

## Target Audience

This workshop is ideal for:

* .NET developers looking to modernize their application architecture
* Software engineers interested in cloud-native development practices
* Architects evaluating distributed application frameworks
* Teams transitioning from monolithic to microservice architectures

## Prerequisites

* Experience with C# and .NET development
* Basic understanding of web application development
* Familiarity with containerization concepts (helpful but not required)
* Laptop with Visual Studio or VSCode, .NET 9 SDK, and either Docker Desktop or Podman Desktop installed
* An Azure account or free trial with sufficient permissions to create compute and storage resources