Microsoft adds new code modernization features to GitHub Copilot and Azure Migrate – News

Microsoft Corp. today updated its GitHub Copilot and Azure Migrate services with new features designed to help companies modernize their legacy applications.

The enhancements are rolling out alongside a professional service offering called Azure Accelerate. Similarly to the feature additions, it focuses on speeding up application upgrades.

Programming languages and development tools sometimes receive updates known as breaking changes. When a piece of software receives a breaking change, the applications that use it must be modified to avoid errors. According to Microsoft, the new features in GitHub Copilot will make it easier for developers to perform such modifications. 

The new features focus on .NET, the tech giant’s popular application development toolkit, and Java. When developers upgrade an application to a new .NET or Java release that contains a breaking change, GitHub Copilot can highlight the issue. From there, the coding assistant uses artificial intelligence agents to generate a fix.

Microsoft says GitHub Copilot can address breaking changes in not only a company’s applications but also their dependencies. Those are the external software components on which a workload depends to work. In addition, GitHub Copilot checks the modified code for cybersecurity vulnerabilities. 

The enhancements are joined by new features designed to help companies move workloads to Azure.

One of the most difficult tasks involved in cloud migrations is replacing the dependencies of the workload being moved. For example, developers may have to switch an application from an on-premises MySQL database to an an Azure SQL instance. According to Microsoft, GitHub Copilot can automatically map out which dependency must be changed and how during Azure migrations.

After the necessary dependency changes are made, the tool runs a series of tests to check that everything works as intended. It verifies that all the application’s features are usable and searches for cybersecurity issues. From there, GitHub Copilot packages the code into a container that can be easily moved to the cloud.

The other update Microsoft announced today also focuses on helping customers shift workloads to Azure. It’s rolling out to the company’s Azure Migrate service. The offering can analyze an on-premise application, determine what changes must be made before it can be moved to the cloud and estimate the associated costs. 

Other newAI features will automate some of the work involved in cloud migrations. Additionally, there’s a new integration with GitHub Copilot. It’s designed to ease collaboration between information technology teams that use Azure Migration and the developers who use GitHub Copilot.

The tool also supports an expanded the range of use cases. It now works with the open-source PostgreSQL database and popular Linux distributions.

Microsoft debuted the product updates alongside a professional service offering called Azure Accelerate. It provides customers with access to Microsoft engineers who can help them move SQL Server databases, virtual desktops and other workloads to Azure.

All the new GitHub Copilot features are generally available except the .NET application modernization capabilities, which are in public preview. The Microsoft Migrate enhancements are in preview.

Image: Microsoft