Welcome to the first in a new series of quarterly blogs that will feature the latest and greatest from Azure Integration Services. With so many exciting new Azure products, Microsoft events, and updates from our partners and customers throughout the year, this series is your chance to revisit the highlights that continue to enable digital transformation with Azure Integration Services.
Recognition: Celebrating Leadership in Integration
As businesses struggle with application sprawl across different environments, seamless integration is the key to both efficiency and competitiveness. Azure Integration Services is purpose-built to address the unique requirements and challenges faced by today’s businesses. That's why we're proud to be named a Leader in the 2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant for iPaaS for the sixth year running!
Product Announcements
Logic Apps: In February we announced two new connectors in Logic Apps Public Preview: Azure OpenAI and Azure AI Search! As you explore emerging AI technologies, these connectors can help accelerate the development of your Gen AI applications. They come with built-in authentication and various operations that facilitate data vectorization, document indexing, and obtaining chat completions—all crucial steps in constructing intelligent RAG applications.
In addition, the Service Bus built-in connector for Logic Apps Standard now supports sessions, allowing for the grouping and processing of related messages together, enabling sequential convoy patterns. Additionally, concurrency support has been added, enabling users to control the simultaneous execution of multiple workflows runs to manage resources efficiently and prevent performance bottlenecks. These enhancements offer more flexibility and efficiency in designing and executing workflows within Logic Apps Standard.
Azure API Management: Recently we released into general availability the Azure API Management developer portal, an automatically generated, customizable website that showcases your APIs with clear documentation. Consumers can easily discover, learn about, request access to, and even try out your APIs—all in one convenient location. Now you can interact with your favorite features and tools with even greater ease and efficiency.
We also wrote about two new Azure API Management features in public preview. With Circuit Breaker, customers can now shield backend services from request overload and define custom trip rules based on failures within a timeframe and specific error codes. This built-in functionality empowers you to implement the circuit breaker pattern for more resilient APIs. With Load Balancer, you can distribute traffic across multiple backends within Azure API Management. Easily add backend pools, implement individual circuit breakers, and seamlessly shift traffic during upgrades for maximum API uptime and performance.
Also, now in preview is TLS 1.3 for Azure API Management. This latest TLS protocol brings enhanced security to your APIs by eliminating outdated encryption methods, streamlining the handshake process, and keeping client identities confidential during authentication. This upgrade strengthens your API defenses against modern threats.
Azure API Center (public preview)
We've announced several updates to Azure API Center, a comprehensive solution for inventorying and managing your organization’s APIs. The new features and improvements aim to help you discover, reuse, and consume your APIs more easily and efficiently. This update enhanced the Azure API Center extension for Visual Studio Code, empowering users to efficiently inventory APIs and conduct API design compliance checks directly within the Visual Studio Code environment. Already streamlining API discovery, trial, and consumption, the Azure API Center extension for Visual Studio Code also offered additional functionality to assist API producers. Additionally, a new API governance feature was unveiled in API Center, enabling API linting and analysis based on customer-owned design guidelines. These enhancements aimed to streamline API management processes and ensure compliance with organizational standards.
Customer Stories: Real-world Impact, Real-world Solutions
We’ve shared a host of customer stories over the past few months—compelling testimonials that offer real-world evidence of Azure Integration Service’s tangible impact. We’re thrilled to showcase our users’ successful implementations but also provide valuable insights to help potential customers envision the specific benefits and solutions that align with their own unique needs.
Events
In February we held a full-day, virtual event that offered a deep dive into the world of API management. At APIs in Action, industry experts explored the latest trends and best practices for leveraging APIs in hybrid, multi-cloud, and AI-powered workloads. Attendees learned innovative architectures to drive business growth and how to transform services to make data more accessible to developers. The event catered to both seasoned professionals and those new to APIs, equipping them with the knowledge and tools to confidently navigate the evolving landscape of API management.
Our first Azure API Management and API Center Community Stand-Up was a live stream event held at the end of March that focused on user engagement and explored the latest industry trends, product updates, and best practices in API management. The event featured the Microsoft product team sharing their perspectives on current API industry trends, and attendees learned about the newest features and updates for Azure API Management and API Center, along with how these advancements can improve their organization's API management practices.
Events Coming Up
If you are in the Toronto area, join us for a free, in-person Microsoft Automation and Integration Day event coming up on April 25! You will hear from Microsoft Product teams and our partners (MNP and Horton Cloud) about the latest capabilities in Power Automate & Azure Integration Services capabilities along with future roadmap, strategy and success stories from local customers and partners.
Take action
Migrate your Azure Logic Apps Integration Service Environment today to unlock new benefits: Azure Logic Apps Integration Service Environment (ISE) is being retired on August 31st, 2024, so make sure you migrate any Logic Apps running on ISE to Logic Apps Standard. Check out this video from our FastTrack team that walks you through the entire migration process!
Stay informed on all things integration!
Stay up-to-date with the latest product announcements, events, or customer stories—check out everything going on with Azure Integration Services by following our blog!
