Technology Overview
.NET & Azure — C# Development and Cloud
.NET is Microsoft's open-source, cross-platform framework for building web APIs, microservices, cloud applications, and more — using C#. Azure is Microsoft's cloud platform, providing hosting, databases, AI, and developer services that integrate tightly with .NET.
What Is .NET?
.NET (formerly .NET Core, not to be confused with the older .NET Framework) is Microsoft's free, open-source, cross-platform runtime and framework. It runs on Windows, Linux, and macOS, and supports multiple languages — primarily C#, F#, and VB.NET.
.NET's primary use cases are web APIs and microservices (ASP.NET Core), background workers, desktop applications (WPF, WinForms, MAUI), and cloud-native services. It is widely used in enterprise environments and is a common choice for companies standardised on the Microsoft ecosystem.
ASP.NET Core
Microsoft's high-performance web framework for building RESTful APIs, gRPC services, and web applications.
Entity Framework Core
ORM for .NET with support for SQL Server, PostgreSQL, SQLite, and other databases. LINQ-based querying.
.NET MAUI
Cross-platform native UI framework for building iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows apps from a single C# codebase.
C# Language
Strongly-typed, object-oriented language with modern features: records, pattern matching, async/await, nullable reference types.
What Is Azure?
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform offering over 200 products and services — from virtual machines and containers to managed databases, AI, DevOps pipelines, and serverless functions. Azure integrates deeply with .NET applications and Microsoft tooling (Visual Studio, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps).
App Service
Managed platform-as-a-service for hosting .NET web apps and APIs with auto-scaling.
Azure Functions
Serverless compute for event-driven workloads triggered by HTTP, queues, timers, and Azure services.
Azure SQL
Managed SQL Server as a service, with high availability, automatic backups, and elastic scaling.
Azure Cosmos DB
Globally distributed NoSQL database with multiple consistency levels and multi-region writes.
Azure Blob Storage
Scalable object storage for files, images, backups, and static assets.
Azure AD / Entra ID
Identity platform for enterprise SSO, B2C authentication, and app registrations.
When to Choose .NET
Good fit when:
- ✓Your organisation is standardised on Microsoft tools
- ✓You need enterprise-grade performance for high-load APIs
- ✓Integration with Azure services or Azure AD is required
- ✓You're building background workers or scheduled jobs at scale
- ✓Strong type safety and compile-time checks are a priority
Consider Node.js or Python when:
- →Your team primarily works in JavaScript
- →You need rapid prototyping with extensive npm ecosystem
- →Machine learning / data science workloads dominate (Python)
- →You're building on AWS Lambda or GCP with JS-native tooling
.NET & Azure at Elmeris
Elmeris builds ASP.NET Core APIs and deploys them on Azure App Service, Azure Functions, and Azure Container Apps. We use Entity Framework Core with SQL Server or PostgreSQL and integrate Azure AD / Entra ID for enterprise authentication.
Backend development services →