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Quantum computing promises to solve problems that classical computers simply cannot — from cryptography and drug discovery to large-scale optimisation. In this session, Chris is joined by Johnny Hooybergs, .NET consultant and author of "Introducing Microsoft Quantum Computing for Developers", to demystify quantum computing for software developers. Johnny explains qubits, superposition, entanglement, and quantum gates, then demonstrates practical examples in Microsoft Q# and Python on both a local simulator and real Azure Quantum hardware, including Azure Quantum Inspired Optimization (QIO).

A live monthly roundup covering everything notable in Azure, GitHub, and Azure DevOps through February 2022. Key highlights include GitHub Actions support for OpenID Connect (OIDC) deployments to Azure Static Web Apps, GitHub Projects beta improvements (flexible iterations, insights filtering), and updates to GitHub Codespaces and the GitHub CLI. On the Azure side: Azure Monitor gains OpenTelemetry integration and improved observability tooling, Azure Payments HSM enters public preview, and Azure Arc cloud-to-edge observability is explored. Chris also shares Cloud With Chris updates including a new Hugo-powered presentations site hosted on Azure Static Web Apps, a feature flags episode, and community highlights from the UK Azure Community Day.

APIs are the glue that connect rich user experiences to our data and services. Good governance using tools such as API Management are vital. Join us as we explore how to work with the deployment options for APIs in Azure API Management and how these can be integrated in CI/CD pipelines. This first episode is particularly suitable for Architects and Developers interested in applying Infrastructure as Code skills to APIs.

APIs are the glue that connect rich user experiences to our data and services. Good governance using tools such as API Management are vital. Join us as we explore how to work with the deployment options for APIs in Azure API Management and how these can be integrated in CI/CD pipelines. This first episode is particularly suitable for Architects and Developers interested in applying Infrastructure as Code skills to APIs.

Back in November, GitHub announced its OpenID Connect capability for cloud deployments was generally available. This has been on my list to try out, and I finally managed to get around to it! With scenarios like this, I prefer to do something real and hands-on, rather than mocked, or a proof of concept. I decided to refactor my GitHub Action workflows for cloudwithchris.com, removing the need for secrets stored in GitHub. In this post, I outline my journey through this.

Chris and Matt start building the Player State API using .NET Web API, defining data models for the SpaceBar management sim game. They scaffold the project, discuss minimal APIs versus controller-based approaches, and set up a GitHub Actions CI workflow to build and validate the service on every commit.

Feature flags sound deceptively simple — they're just if statements. But mastering them requires a mature DevOps foundation and disciplined release engineering. Chris Reddington is joined by Chris Ayers (Azure Fast Track Engineer at Microsoft) for a deep dive into separating deployments from releases, choosing the right tooling, and implementing feature flags safely using Azure App Configuration, LaunchDarkly, and Optimizely in .NET applications.

I recently wrote a blog post about using GitHub Actions to automatically add a GitHub Issue to a GitHub project (Beta) when the issue is opened. I received a question from my colleague and maintainer of the promitor and KEDA Open Source (OSS) Projects, Tom Kerkhove on doing the same with a user-owned GitHub repository, rather than organisation-owned.

In this debut episode of ToolUp Tuesday, Chris and Matt kick off a new series by planning a massively multiplayer management sim game from scratch. They design a microservices architecture, choosing .NET for the world events engine and Go for player decisions, and set up a GitHub repository with GitHub Projects for backlog management.

If there's an easy way to achieve something, then I'm all for it! You may have noticed that I've been putting a lot of effort into refactoring my site and open sourcing the original Cloud With Chris theme. I've now released that as the Hugo Creator theme for Hugo. As part of the refactoring process into a reusable theme, I had to make several breaking changes. This meant that I'd need to update the contents of my site. I want to share a quick tip that I discovered to add captions to my images in markdown.