Azure SDK for .NET 2.0 Release Notes

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This document contains the release notes for the Azure for .NET SDK 2.0 release and describes how Side-by-Side Cloud Service Debugging is Not Supported with Projects Built Prior to Version 1.7, New Features, Breaking Changes, and the Azure Cloud Services Support Policy.

Azure for .NET SDK version number (2.0) is determined by the core Azure service runtime assembly using semantic versioning. Other client libraries packaged inside the Azure SDK for .NET, along with their respective NuGet packages, follow independent versioning based on the semantic versioning scheme.

The Azure SDK for .NET 2.0 includes Azure Storage 2.0.5.1, Azure Service Bus 2.0, Azure Caching 2.0, and Azure Configuration Manager 2.0 libraries. You can also download these libraries from their respective NuGet packages.

For more information related to this release, see the following resources:

Side-by-Side Cloud Service Debugging is Not Supported with Projects Built Prior to Version 1.7

Side-by-Side Cloud Service Debugging is only supported with Azure SDK for .NET versions 1.7, 1.8, and 2.0. For a full debugging experience, projects built using versions prior to version 1.7 must be upgraded. For more information, see Azure Cloud Services Support Lifecycle Policy.

For example, when running a project built on Azure SDK for .NET version 1.6 on a machine with version 2.0 installed, you will see the following error message- "The system is missing a prerequisite to execute the service."

To work around this error, uninstall the compute emulator included in version 2.0 and install the compute emulator for version 1.6. If you do this, however, you will not be able to run an application built on SDK version 2.0 on this machine.

New Features

The following features are new in the Azure SDK for .NET 2.0:

  • Azure Websites – Microsoft Visual Studio Tools now includes support for diagnostics, management, and simplified publishing for Azure Websites. The Visual Studio Server Explorer has added support for Websites. Server Explorer enables you to list, manage, and configure settings on your website. The process of publishing to a website has also been simplified.

  • Azure Cloud Services Diagnostics – Visual Studio Tools support added for configuring and viewing diagnostics data on a live service without re-deploying. For more information, see What's New in the Azure Tools.

  • Cloud Services – Added support for newly-available high memory A6 & A7 Azure Virtual Machine sizes; you can now deploy a cloud service to the high memory A6 & A7 Virtual Machine sizes. For more information, see Virtual Machine and Cloud Service Sizes for Azure.

  • Azure Storage services- New Cloud Service project templates now reference Storage Client Library 2.0 by default. Visual Studio Server Explorer now has rich support for performing CRUD operations on table entities while also adding support for creating and deleting tables in the Azure Table service from within Visual Studio.

  • Azure Service Bus – Updated the client library with support for browsing messages, the event-driven message programming model, and auto-deleting idle messaging entities. For more information, see https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/dn198643.aspx.

  • Guest OS Upgrade- Guest OS upgrades from OS Family 1 or 2 to OS Family 3 are now supported. Note that applications targeting OS Family 3 have a minimum requirement of Azure SDK version 1.8 and .NET Framework 4.0.

Breaking Changes

The following are breaking changes in the Azure SDK for .NET 2.0:

  • Azure Diagnostics- The Azure Diagnostics client library has been updated so that it no longer has a dependency on the Storage Client Library version 1.7. This change makes it easier for your application to use newer versions of the Storage Client Library and may require minor code changes to update your applications. For more information, see Breaking Changes in Azure Diagnostics (SDK 2.0).

  • .NET Framework minimum version- The minimum version of the .NET Framework required for building web and worker roles is now .NET Framework 4.0. You can still reference .NET Framework 3.5 assemblies in your project, but the project itself must be built targeting .NET Framework 4.0 or 4.5. For more information about changing the .NET Framework target version, see How to: Target a Version of the .NET Framework.

  • ServiceRuntime, Configuration and Caching assemblies are now built against the .NET Framework 4.0 runtime. Therefore, any of your applications that target the .NET Framework 3.5 should now target the .NET Framework 4.0 before upgrading to the Azure SDK for .NET 2.0.

  • Azure Connect- The Azure Connect preview is being retired June 30. Please transition to site-to-site or point-to-site VPNs. For more information see this Connect article.

  • Hosted Web Core Support- Hosted Web Core will not be supported in Azure SDK versions 2.0 and later. Azure web roles now require a <Site> element in the service definition file (CSDEF) for your role. The <Site> element was introduced in version 1.3 of the Azure SDK and allows a web role to run in full IIS mode. In order to upgrade your web role, you must add the <Site> element if it is not currently specified in the CSDEF file. For more information on configuring your web role of IIS, see Configure the Site Entry in the Service Definition File.

  • CSUpload.exe warning- CSUpload.exe now emits a warning recommending that you use Azure PowerShell cmdlets to upload VHDs to Azure.

  • Service Bus client library – the Message Buffer feature, and all APIs related to MessageBuffer have been removed. You should instead use Service Bus queues.

Azure Cloud Services Support Policy

In an effort to evolve the Azure developer ecosystem, we are introducing the new support & life cycle policies for Cloud Services  – Guest OS & SDK.  These policies exclude Azure Virtual Machines(IaaS).

  • Guest OS Family-  Azure Cloud Services will support no fewer than the latest two Guest OS Families for deploying new Cloud Services.  Microsoft will notify users 12 months before  deprecating a Guest OS Family in order allow the transition to a supported family.

  • Guest OS Version- Azure will support only the latest Guest OS Version for each family. Customers using the Automatic Update option always receive the latest Guest OS Version as it is rolled out.  Microsoft will provide a 60 day grace period for customers using the manual update option before they must adopt the latest Guest OS version in order to continue to use the Cloud Service under the terms of the Azure SLA.

  • Azure SDK-  Azure Cloud Services will support no fewer than the latest two SDK versions for deploying new Cloud Services.  Microsoft will provide 12 months notification before retiring a SDK in order to smooth the transition to a supported version. The Azure SDK Policy covers Azure SDK Authoring Tools, Client Libraries, Command line utilities, Compute & Storage Emulators, and Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio.

For more information, see Azure Cloud Services Support Lifecycle Policy.

See Also

Introducing Azure