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.NET — Framework Development Guide

Last reviewed: 2026-05-29

.NET is a free, cross-platform, open-source developer platform by Microsoft for building many types of applications. With .NET, you can build web, mobile, desktop, cloud, IoT, microservices, and game applications using C#, F#, or VB.NET.

Overview

The .NET ecosystem has evolved significantly:

Version Release Key Features
.NET Framework 2002–2019 Windows-only, legacy
.NET Core 2016–2019 Cross-platform, modular
.NET 5+ 2020+ Unified platform (Core + Framework merged)
.NET 8 2023 LTS, AOT compilation, Blazor United
.NET 9 2024 Latest release

Key components: ASP.NET Core (web), Entity Framework Core (ORM), Blazor (web UI), MAUI (cross-platform mobile/desktop), WinForms/WPF (Windows desktop).

Training Content

  • NET-Microservices-Architecture-for-Containerized-NET-Applications.pdf (11.9 MB) — Microsoft e-book covering:
  • Domain-Driven Design (DDD) for microservices
  • CQRS (Command/Query Responsibility Segregation)
  • Event Sourcing
  • Docker containerization of .NET services
  • API gateways (Ocelot, YARP)
  • Service discovery, resilience (Polly), health checks
  • Message-based communication (RabbitMQ, Azure Service Bus)
  • gRPC in .NET for inter-service communication

Core Concepts

ASP.NET Core Web API

var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);
builder.Services.AddControllers();
builder.Services.AddDbContext<AppDbContext>(options =>
    options.UseSqlServer(builder.Configuration.GetConnectionString("Default")));

var app = builder.Build();
app.MapControllers();
app.Run();

Entity Framework Core

public class Product
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public decimal Price { get; set; }
}

// Query
var products = await db.Products
    .Where(p => p.Price > 50)
    .OrderBy(p => p.Name)
    .ToListAsync();

Dependency Injection (Built-in)

builder.Services.AddScoped<IOrderService, OrderService>();
builder.Services.AddSingleton<ICacheService, RedisCacheService>();

Key Technologies

Technology Use Case
ASP.NET Core Web APIs, MVC, Razor Pages
Blazor Web UI with C# (WASM or Server)
MAUI Cross-platform desktop + mobile
Entity Framework Core ORM / database access
SignalR Real-time web (WebSockets)
gRPC High-performance RPC
YARP Reverse proxy / API gateway

Microservices Architecture (from training PDF)

The training PDF covers a complete microservices architecture:

Client → API Gateway (Ocelot/YARP)
  ├── Identity Service (.NET + IdentityServer)
  ├── Catalog Service (.NET + EF Core + SQL Server)
  ├── Ordering Service (.NET + DDD + CQRS)
  ├── Basket Service (.NET + Redis)
  └── Payment Service (.NET + Stripe)
       ↓
Event Bus (RabbitMQ / Azure Service Bus)

Key patterns: Circuit Breaker (Polly), Retry with exponential backoff, Health checks, Distributed tracing (OpenTelemetry).

Resources