State of the Azure SDK 2023

Making the SDK in 2022

Four years ago, we started on a journey to build an updated and unified set of Azure SDK libraries that reflected a core set of guidelines. By building more approachable and more idiomatic libraries, we would make it both easier to get started with Azure and incorporate more Azure services as your projects evolved.

In 2022, we completed the re-release of all management libraries that comply with these guidelines across all five supported languages: .NET, Java, JavaScript, Python, and Go. We also announced the retirement of the older versions of these libraries. You can see the list of deprecated libraries and their corresponding end of support dates, along with the replacement libraries and migration guides, on the Azure SDK Deprecated Releases page.

We also took a significant step moving our new language for API design, Cadl, from development into production. In the first half of 2022, new Azure Resource Manager services began using Cadl, rather than OpenAPI, to describe their service interface. In the second half, data plane services began onboarding to Cadl using updated tooling to produce client libraries. We have started evangelizing Cadl externally with talks at industry conferences and blog posts. You can check out the most recent Cadl blog posts via the Cadl tag on the Azure SDK blog.

Azure SDK for Go

In addition to releasing a full suite of updated management libraries in Go, we took our first steps towards building a comprehensive list of data plane client libraries. We released stable versions of azcore and azidentity, which form the core infrastructure for client libraries, as well as stable libraries for Service Bus and Azure Tables. We focused on producing idiomatic, consistent, and diagnosable libraries for the Go community, empowering Go developers to interact with Azure. The packages evolved over time as we reacted to changes in the Go ecosystem and improved guidelines. We waited for key features such as Go’s generics and we addressed customer feedback to improve developer experience. For an up-to-date list of stable and preview libraries for Go, check out our Azure SDK for Go Releases table.

Azure Identity SDK

Rotating passwords is cumbersome and error prone, and so, over the past year, we invested heavily in client libraries, database drivers, and documentation to support passwordless connections for Azure services. With the Azure Identity client libraries for .NET, Java, JavaScript, Python, or Go, customers can more easily authenticate to many of their favorite Azure services via managed identity – no more passwords are necessary! Managed identity token caching is now available in the Azure Identity libraries for all five languages. More importantly, with fewer token requests to Azure Active Directory, your apps can be more resilient!

Blog highlights

As in past years, our year-in-review wraps up with a collection of some of our most popular blog posts. In no particular order, this collection was curated by the Azure SDK team:

We also welcome guest contributions to the Azure SDK blog! If you’re interested in authoring a post, contact us at [email protected].

Upcoming work for 2023

2023 is another important year for Cadl! We’re renaming and rebranding the language to better communicate its value proposition – you should see that go public shortly – and we expect adoption to ramp up considerably across both management plane and data plane. We’re planning a public beta for the language in the first half of 2023.

Text proxy and recordings

Last year, we heard from developers that the expense of running tests against live cloud services, like Azure, was a significant issue. In our own test suites, we’ve addressed this difficulty by developing a test proxy that records interactions with Azure for playback on demand. This test proxy is available in our open source tools repo, so you can save costs while deploying high-quality software to Azure. Check out Mario Guerra’s latest blog post, “Level up your cloud testing game with the Azure SDK test proxy“, for a hands-on demo using the test proxy tooling.

Azure SDK for Go

Significant investments are planned for Go client libraries in 2023, including core features within azcore, credential types within azidentity, and new libraries, such as Event Grid, Queue Storage, and Container Registry. Client libraries for Event Hubs, Key Vault, and App Configuration services – currently in beta – are expected to enter stable versions in the coming months. Already, you can get started using the Blob Storage and Monitor Query SDKs for Go!

Azure SDK Community Standup

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of our Azure SDK Community Standup. Our goal is to create a space where developers can come together, share their experiences and knowledge, and discuss the latest developments in the Azure SDK ecosystem. These streams are held monthly and aim to provide a platform for developers to connect with other Azure professionals and stay up to date on the latest Azure SDK updates and best practices.

Join us every second Tuesday of the month from 11:00 AM to noon Pacific Time (UTC-8) to learn, collaborate, and grow with the community. Check out the recording of our premiere standup!

Follow @AzureSDK on Twitter and find us under #AzureSDKCommunity to keep up with updates and check out the Azure Developers channel on YouTube for more Azure Developer community content.