In a recent blogpost, Microsoft and Truffle announced a partnership to bring blockchain developer tools to the Microsoft Azure ecosystem. The investments the organizations are making include local blockchain nodes for testing, with test data, smart contract authoring, continuous deployment, debugging and testing.
Truffle, a spin-off of Brooklyn-based blockchain company ConsenSys, has developed an open source blockchain development environment and testing framework for the Ethereum blockchain. Developers can use truffle tools to compile, link, test and manage binaries. The tools have over 3 million downloads and are used to expedite smart contract and front-end app development for distributed ledger applications.
This partnership builds upon a previous engagement between the two companies in April 2018 when they co-authored guidance for using Truffle in consortium DevOps scenarios and included tooling in Microsoft’s Azure Blockchain Development Kit for Ethereum.
Microsoft continues to make investments in their blockchain tools including Visual Code extensions, connectors for Azure Logic Apps/Microsoft Flow and Azure DevOps pipelines.
Both Microsoft and Truffle acknowledged the need for better blockchain tooling in the enterprise and this partnership seeks to address those gaps. Tim Coulter, Truffle CEO and founder, explains:
Early on it was very clear Ethereum developers needed professional, modern development tools. With enterprise’s growing adoption of blockchain technology, Truffle recognizes the importance of this opportunity to bring our blockchain-native experience to enterprise developers across the world through our partnership with Microsoft.
As a result of this partnership, Truffle developers can expect deep integration with Azure services like GitHub and the integration of Truffle Teams, which allows for the management and monitoring of blockchain applications, into Azure offerings. In addition, Azure developers can expect rich experiences in the following areas:
- Local nodes that can be used for development and testing.
- Node Test Data that has been forked from an existing blockchain instance so that developers can access a local copy of a blockchain network.
- Smart contract deployments using a repeatable scripted approach to local, private and public chain environments.
- Test Execution using Mocha test framework that can be executed locally, inside an Azure DevOps pipeline or through an interactive console.
- Debug smart contracts using tooling that is on par with .Net and Java developer’s expectations.
This partnership increases the strength of Microsoft’s blockchain ecosystem. Marc Mercuri, principal program manager, Azure Blockchain Engineering, explains:
As partners and as end users, we are big fans of Truffle’s technology and the people behind it. Their customer obsession and open orientation has made them the trusted choice for blockchain developers, and we are eager to see what you will build with Truffle on Azure.
For more information on how Truffle integrates with Microsoft’s blockchain offerings, please visit the Azure Blockchain team’s BlockTalk channel where they highlight the Truffle extension for Visual Studio Code.