Visual Studio 2015 has deeper Azure integration than before, with easy creation and deployment of ASP.NET applications to Azure, and new Azure-based diagnostics through a feature called Application Insights. Azure also provides services for processing input from large numbers of sensors, as in a typical Internet of Things (IoT) application. Azure services include database management, analytics, virtual networking, auto-scaling web applications, and Visual Studio Online for application lifecycle management. With or without Office 365, Microsoft Azure is a comprehensive platform, ideal both for test and development and also for deployment of cloud applications running on either Windows or Linux.

Businesses benefit from single sign-on and a unified directory. Although Office 365 is mainly a set of hosted applications, it is also a development platform, exposing APIs that you can use in cloud or mobile applications, and using Azure Active Directory, which you can also use for custom applications. Second, there is Microsoft’s cloud platform, Microsoft Azure and Office 365. Other options include the older Windows Forms framework and Visual C++ with Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC) or other frameworks. The Visual Studio IDE itself is built with WPF. Visual Studio has several options for building desktop applications, and in this version there are improvements to Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), which is the primary framework for desktop development in. Windows desktop apps remain important, particularly since it is easy to write applications that run on all versions since Windows 7, or even back to Windows XP. In Windows 10, UWP apps run in a window just like desktop apps, making them more familiar for users. The UWP offers several advantages to developers, including the simplicity and discoverability of deployment through the Windows Store, and the possibility of having an app work across numerous form factors including mobile. The Universal Windows Platform (UWP) is the next step in its evolution and runs on desktop Windows, the forthcoming Windows 10 Mobile, XBox One consoles, and a new edition of Windows called IoT Core that runs on small devices such as the ARM-based Raspberry Pi. Windows 10 is Microsoft’s effort to deliver an upgrade that Windows 7 users will enjoy, unlike its predecessor, but it is also a step forward for the secure and touch-friendly Windows Runtime platform which Microsoft introduced with Windows 8. The first is Windows 10, which has been rolling out to customers – in many cases as a free upgrade – since the end of July 2015. This release is shaped by several key trends. Microsoft’s platform is changing, and Visual Studio, the all-encompassing development tool, is changing with it.

Visual studio 2015